


Best Served Cold

by betheflame



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alpha Bucky Barnes, Alpha Tony Stark, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Alternate Universe - Stripper/Exotic Dancer, Boston, Corsetry, Getting Together, Lawyer Bucky Barnes, M/M, Multi, Omega Steve Rogers, Stripper Steve Rogers, Strippers & Strip Clubs, Tony Stark Has A Heart, established winteriron
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-13
Updated: 2021-01-01
Packaged: 2021-03-09 19:35:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 30,704
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27541675
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/betheflame/pseuds/betheflame
Summary: Bucky Barnes and Tony Stark believed with their whole beings they were loud and proud advocates for Omega Rights.And then they fell in love with one.OR:Where Steve works as a dancer at an Alpha Club that he should own but legally can't, Bucky's a lawyer whose partners are poking him to do more to change the world than sign checks, and Tony's brain is itching for a new problem to tackle. Plus, Steve wears a corset.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers/Tony Stark, James "Bucky" Barnes/Tony Stark
Comments: 195
Kudos: 538





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Corsets_and_Cardigans](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Corsets_and_Cardigans/gifts).



> Heather commissioned this work about sixteen years ago in the month of January to help fight the Australian Wildfires. Her prompt was simple: Steve, Bucky, and Tony - at least one of them in a [Innova vest.](https://innovacorsetry.com/products/corset-vest) After some help from Bill and a lot of rubber ducking with Ferret, Marie, and MrFlame - viola. Thanks to Ferret for the beta and Jeh for the cheering. 
> 
> And then [Tiff](https://tifftac.tumblr.com/) saw my call for visuals on the tweeter and DELIVERED. I just keep staring at the portraits she did and pinching myself. Please head to her Tumblr and be amazed.
> 
> Please note: this fic is about sex workers in an oppressive society. You can assume there will be references to non-con, but none is explicitly described or shown.

“Steve,” Jan called from behind the bar, and he held up a finger to tell her he’d be there in a minute.

He looked back down at the clipboard his step-father had just shoved into his hand. “But Pierce -”

“I’ve asked you to call me Father many times, Steven,” Alexander Pierce interrupted.

“And I’ve asked you to never call me Steven,” Steve replied, without looking away from the sheets. “I had a father, and he was a sack of shit, and I don’t want to use that word, which I have explained many, many times.”

“I don’t like omegas using that language,” Pierce said, a note of menace laced through the words.

 _Breathe_ , Steve told himself. _Do not hit the man who literally holds your life in his hands._

“I don’t understand how we have a cash shortage when the bar tabs have gone up 32% since we promoted Jan,” Steve said instead. “Our expenditures are the same.”

“Well,” Pierce purred as he took the clipboard from Steve. “Your pretty omega brain just isn’t made to understand those kinds of things, Steven. I showed you this so that you’d know how much you have to bring in tonight, both personally and as a team.”

Steve nodded, letting the use of the name that only his dead mother used for him roll off his back because it just wasn’t worth it. “I’ll pass this on to the rest of the team,” Steve replied evenly and left Pierce before he could say another word.

Omera was an exclusive Alpha Club in Boston’s Brookline neighborhood. Tucked away amidst independent bookstores, kosher delis, and boutiques that sold clothes expensive enough to make Steve’s eyes water, the club had been in his family for six generations. It started off as a saloon during the Revolutionary War, then evolved past that, and it was Steve’s birthright.

Only issue was that Steve was an omega, and they _were_ property, they didn’t _own_ any.

So he made due the best he could, by working his fingers and hole to the bone, providing safe employment for other omegas and doing his best to put himself between them and trouble. Alpha Clubs were part of the intricate system the world had built to make sure omegas were provided for, but could never assert rights for themselves.

The pattern, the expectation, was for an omega to bond with an alpha by the time they reached majority. If an omega didn’t want to be bonded, society blithely declared that it was no problem - they could ‘work’ in one of six categories. Omegas were allowed to be teachers, nurses, secretaries, librarians, servants (which meant everything from bartending to scrubbing toilets since ‘minimum wage’ was a concept that only existed in Europe), and sex workers. End of list. The general understanding was that those were all consensual choices - some omegas liked healing, and some liked fucking and there was no real judgement between them.

Omegas knew the difference, though. Omegas knew that there was rarely a ‘choice’, that there were all sorts of hurdles in place, all sorts of unspoken barriers that sorted omegas into something akin to a caste system, but they also knew that voicing that reality too loudly would get them nowhere. There were Omega Rights agitators, of course, and Steve counted himself among them, but progress was slow when the powerful controlled the timeline.

When Steve’s father died, he’d left the club to his brother, Uncle Edgar, who was all around a useless human but not a bigot. He was thrilled to let Sarah run everything and only show up for government inspections and simply collect his paychecks. Somewhere around Steve’s 12th birthday, Sarah had married Alexander Pierce - a powerful alpha known around Boston for being a good businessman and a solid provider. Steve had just presented, and his health wasn’t the best, and Steve wasn’t an idiot. They needed a protector; it just chafed Steve that they did.

Then Sarah passed and Edgar wasted no time signing over the club to Pierce, who changed the name from Oishin (which it had been for generations) to Omeras. At the age of 18 and in less than three hours after Sarah’s funeral, Steve went from being groomed to run the place the way his mother did, to being groomed to be Pierce’s show pony.

As Pierce pumped him full of steroids and sent him to specialist after specialist for procedures to straighten his spine, his teeth, and his attitude (the first two worked, not so much the last), Steve resolved to do everything within his power to make sure all the omegas were still treated with dignity as they were pawed at by rich alphas.

As soon as Pierce walked away, he headed over to the bar. “Yeah, Jan?”

“I got those numbers too,” she said quietly, “and his inventory counts are different than mine. I take mine at night right before we close, and he does them, ‘first thing in the morning,’ and I think he lets folks in here between those two times to help themselves.”

“Oh, I’m positive he does,” Steve said with a sigh. They exchanged a look, then Steve headed towards the rest of the staff.

“Nebbie,” he called as he walked back into the dressing rooms.

Nebula’s legal name was Karen Gilchrest Sanderson, but she hated the generic name and went by her stage name. Thus, she'd been Nebula for the entire time she’d worked at Omera. Tall and lanky, with long red hair and a piercing gaze, she was a particular favorite of two of the high rollers who were coming in that night.

She popped her head out of her cubicle. “Yeah, Boss Man?”

“Don’t let Satan hear you say that,” Steve said quickly.

“Sarah left you in charge of us and him in charge of the numbers,” Sam called from his cubicle. “We were all there, we all read the will.”

“Well, not all of us,” Nebula pointed to a few of the stations for the newer employees in the past five years since Sarah’s death. “But enough of us.”

“And those of us who are new aren’t idiots,” Michelle snorted from her station as she applied another row of false eyelashes. “An O like your ma isn’t gonna leave something to a dickstain by choice.”

There was a round of ‘hear hear’s as Steve felt a slight blush creep up his cheeks. Sarah Rogers had run this club with an iron fist when she owned it with her brother. “You all know the deal. Uncle Edgar didn’t want it, and he signed it over to Pierce.”

“Your uncle’s a dickstain,” Scott called from his corner.

“Agreed,” Steve sighed. “But I’m here to talk about none of that.”

“What are you here to talk about? You never come back this close to showtime.” Hope caught his eye in her mirror.

“We need to clear 30k tonight.”

There were cries of protest all around the room: “We have never had a thirty thousand dollar night that wasn’t also a holiday.” “Are you joking?”

Finally, like the pack leader she was, Tessa - stage name Valkyrie, nickname Val - stood from her stool and strode towards Steve. “So who are the high rollers booked in?”

“Weinstein’s coming,” Steve said on a sigh, and he saw Nebula blanche. She was his favorite and Weinstein was a certifiable creep.

“I’ll get five at least from him,” Nebula promised. “He wanted to bring someone to watch, and I’ll just say we charge more for that.”

“Just charge the room to the account,” Steve replied. There was a strict law against sexual intercourse at an Alpha Club - for reasons Steve had never quite understood because everyone knew they were glorified mega markets for horny alphas - so most clubs had hotels attached to them. Omera’s was the Brookline Boudoir, and it was run by his best friend - and probable Alpha mate if he ever just decided to give up on his dream of true love - Peggy Carter.

“You gonna let Pegs know he’s in tonight?”

Steve nodded. One of the reasons Peggy was his best friend was that she was a staunch omega rights supporter and made sure there was extra security at her hotel on the nights Steve was concerned about the safety of one of his workers. They’d both burn the system to the ground if they could, but in lieu of matches, they made do.

“Also, two new high profilers may be joining us. A mated alpha pair, believe it or not,” Steve replied and watched in satisfaction as the ripple of excitement went through the room. Mated alpha pairs tended to be the best tippers and the least grabby - they were there for the entertainment and, generally, believers in consent. After their decades-long struggle to be allowed to legally bond, most members of that particular community were also Omega Rights advocates, but Steve noticed that few were willing to sacrifice anything for it. He wasn’t sure he blamed them - sometimes you just got tired.

“Tony Stark and James Barnes,” Val breathed from over his shoulder. He hadn’t even realized she’d snuck up behind him. “You weren’t kidding.”

“Stark’s assistant requested a private booth with bottle service and a food menu,” Steve continued. “Sam, can you get with Riley to make sure the kitchen at the hotel is ready for orders?”

“Aye, aye, Cap,” Sam replied, saluting with a grin.

“30k and not a dollar less,” Steve repeated. “Corsets tight, tits out, smiles wide.”

“I really like ‘clear eyes, full hearts, can’t lose’ a whole lot better,” Gwen replied. Gwen’s stage name was Spidergirl, due to her incredible ability to stick to the pole no matter what position she contorted her body into.

“Well, that one wins fictional high school football championships in Texas,” Steve retorted, “and this one keeps us alive.”

The room fell silent, and he immediately regretted it. They looked to Steve for positivity, for ways to get through this hellscape of being an omega in America, they didn’t look to him for truth. They got that enough other places.

“Sorry, guys,” Steve sighed. “Stretched a bit thin.”

“I heard we clear 40k tonight,” Hope said with a tone of steel in her voice. “Isn’t that what everyone heard the Boss Man say?”

“I heard 50, but if you all are lazy o’s, I can’t help ya,” Sam replied.

“How high until he gets off your back?” Val whispered in Steve’s ear.

“80k, I think, will let him breathe for the whole weekend,” Steve said quietly.

“Then me and my nipple tassels are gonna get you at least 10 on our own.” Val kissed his temple and patted his butt. “Breathe, Steve. You’re not alone.”

* * *

* * *

The rules were simple.

Looking and not touching involved an entrance fee, but no background check. You wanted physical contact - even a simple lap dance - then a background check was required, and if you wanted more than touching, you had to be a member. It was a system set up long ago and followed at every Alpha Club around the world.

The problem was that so many alphas who ran the clubs didn’t exactly enforce them. While Pierce was strict with the membership-in-order-to-fuck rule, it was way more about the money than the safety of his omegas.

Which was why Steve did everything in his power to make sure they were safe. Pierce paid for basic healthcare, but Steve made sure each of the staff had everything they wanted. Whenever someone had to terminate a pregnancy because the alpha refused a condom and birth control wasn’t exactly 100% foolproof, Steve took care of it. Pierce paid for implants, teeth whitening, and anything else that would fetch him more money. Steve made sure the other omegas also had anxiety medication, access to therapy, and racially appropriate hair care since Pierce believed that all hair behaved the same.

The memory of Val’s face the first time Pierce sent her to someone to, “make her hair look normal,” was something that haunted Steve’s dreams.

So, yes, the rules were simple, but living under them certainly wasn’t. Living under them required resilience, creativity, and a level of bravery that Steve didn’t always feel he had.

But James Barnes and Tony Stark were coming in that night, and Steve had to find another gear to shift into. They were new and high rollers and so Steve knew Pierce would send him to attend to them. They’d checked ‘male’ as primary gender preference, and Scott was still new and Sam’s favorite client was in town from Norway, so it would be Steve.

Steve sighed as he took out the beard oil he used for high rollers and rubbed it methodically into his facial hair. His routine for getting ready each evening - Steve hadn’t had a night off since his mother’s funeral because Pierce didn’t believe in vacations, so Steve covered for everyone who needed a break - was sacrosanct. The rhythms were what often kept him clinging to sanity, tenuous as that cling was.

Shower first, with the sandalwood body wash and the mandatory cleansing douche, before applying the hair removal cream that Pierce demanded for all his omegas. Heaven forbid any of them seemed like humans. Steve hadn’t had hair on his balls, hole, or torso in ten years - he wasn’t even sure his hair follicles functioned.

The next step was five minutes of deep breathing exercises while he let his hair air-dry a little before he ran the hair dryer over it and added the styling gel that kept it off his face. Then it was beard maintenance - oil, comb, balm, comb - before starting the process of getting dressed.

If he was working the floor, bar, or front check-in, his uniform was a bit more formal. Black dress pants, navy blue dress shirt, blue and black corset, laced within an inch of its life so that Steve was permanently doing his best impression of a walking Dorito and not one of a functioning human who could do things like breathe. If he was dancing, then the dress pants got traded for tear-away trousers in a pinstripe, and a silver, black, and blue corset with no shirt.

Tonight was floor since he was attending Barnes and Stark, so he pulled on the specially designed underwear strap that secured his balls but let someone suck him through his trousers if they wanted. He added the shirt and noticed there was a slight tear in one of the seams and mentally made a note to ask Jan to take care of that later.

He got his corset as tight as he could on his own and then headed for the dressing room to ask someone else to do the final pulls.

On this night, that person was Sam.

“The richest man in Boston and his husband,” Sam replied. “Who have a reputation for not being into omegas, so tonight should be interesting.”

“Maybe they’re thinking of investing in the club,” Steve commented, keeping his voice even as Sam pulled the laces and constricted his lungs.

“Or maybe they’re just horny fuckers who want to make you watch as they get their rocks off,” Sam said, a dark tone laced through his voice.

“Just because most alpha/alpha couples who come here have a voyeurism kink doesn’t mean these two do,” Steve admonished. “And even if they do, watching those two men knot each other isn’t exactly a hardship.”

Sam snorted. “Better you than me.”

Sam had never, in the entire time Steve had known him, been aroused by someone else’s body. He didn’t care about knots, or smiles, or holes, or how someone’s eyes reflected the light. Sam was only interested in how people made him feel, which was particularly difficult for an omega sex worker, expected to be permanently aroused by every alpha in his presence.

“I like knots.” Steve shrugged. “Not gonna apologize for it.”

“No, buddy,” Sam said quickly. “I didn’t mean that. Sorry, I’m tired.”

“Thor’s in,” Steve replied as he turned to face Sam. “So you get a bit of a break.”

“He promised he’d bring Riley into the room.” Sam grinned, and Steve’s heart swelled for his friend. “So we could all get to know each other.”

“You think he’s working on papers?”

Thor Odinson was a Norwegian fishing magnate who came to Boston on business about once per month. The story of how he and Sam met was basically ripped from a fairy tale - Sam had been visiting Riley in the Boudoir’s restaurant and had caught Thor’s eye. At that point, Thor had no idea how oppressed American omegas were. Since becoming friendly with Sam and Riley - who were functional soulmates - he’d been trying to figure out a way to get the pair to Norway, where they could marry as omegas, and Thor had jobs for them in his vast network of friends. Once they were safely out of the country, Thor planned on pulling his contracts with American businesses and publicly stating it was because of the deplorable conditions for American omegas.

Steve longed for the day.

“He says he thinks that if I marry him and Riley marries one of his friends, we can annul both marriages after we get out of the U.S. and establish residency,” Sam said. “It’s all a little mystifying to me, but the idea that this time next year…”

“I know, pal,” Steve said quietly. “And you have my full support for whatever you two need.”

“You just keep Pierce thinking that Thor is fucking me seventeen ways to Sunday, and I’ll be in your debt,” Sam replied.

“Oh, that’s fun,” Steve said with a laugh. “I’ve started making up sex positions on your paperwork. Last time you guys did a Reverse Assyrian Racehorse.”

Sam snorted and patted Steve on the shoulder. “Let’s go.”

“Showtime,” Steve confirmed.

* * *

“I put them in 17,” Gwen murmured to Steve later in the evening. “They’re even more gorgeous in person, so if they turn out to be halfway decent and into lady o’s, throw your girl a bone, eh?”

Steve snorted and kissed Gwen’s temple. He straightened his corset, cracked his neck from side and side, and headed to Booth 17 to meet the two men who featured in his personal fantasies more than anyone else.

Back when Sarah was alive and Steve was allowed to dream, he’d applied for an omega-only scholarship for an artist’s residency run by Stark Futures Foundation. During the process, he’d met Tony Stark, the enigmatic heir to one of the largest family fortunes in American history. Steve had been a skinny nothing of an omega, but he’d never forgotten the way that Stark, five years his senior, had treated him with dignity. Tony was actually the first alpha outside the Rogers family to look into Steve’s eyes when he spoke and that had never left Steve.

He’d paid attention to Tony as they both grew up and had silently mourned when it was announced that Tony was formally mating with someone - and another alpha at that. By that point, Sarah had died and Pierce had taken over, and Steve dreamed of the day where his Alpha in Shining Armor would save him and his family legacy from Pierce. It was a fantasy, Steve knew, but it kept him company when nothing else did.

Stark’s bonding to Barnes had killed that, and so Steve decided it was useless to dream. He replaced that energy with pragmatic planning and a drive to keep everyone he loved as safe as possible. Which, tonight, meant that he’d do whatever he had to do so that he’d leave with at least three thousand dollars from the pair in his pocket.

He paused just out of their sight line and let himself drink the pair in. Sure, Stark had been his fantasy object for years, but Barnes was… breathtaking. Clean cut hair, with a dusting of stubble along his jaw, the darkness of the club did nothing to dim the glow of joy that radiated from Barnes’ smile.

These men loved each other.

Steve lost his breath.

Love, he’d been told over and over and over again, was not something that alphas felt, not really. Omegas did, for sure, but true and honest to God love for another person was not something alphas were capable of.

_“The only way you’ll get true love,” Sarah reminded her beloved son, “is to find an omega.”_

_“But I don’t want omegas,” Steve grumbled. “I don’t know much, but I know that. I want an alpha and I want one to love me.”_

_Sarah’s smile was sad as she kissed her fourteen-year-old son’s head. “That’s all our dreams, baby, but it’s just not one that comes true. We just hope for one that will keep us safe, and make us happy as we can be, and we find other ways to get that love. Omega friends, for example, are really special.”_

And Steve had those.

 _No_ , the SarahVoice that lived in his head replied, you have colleagues _. You had just started to open up to Sam and then as soon as he met Thor, you pulled back. You need friends, Steven._

Just as Steve was about to argue back with his dead mother in the most Irish thing he’d done in a while, Tony Stark caught his eye.

Showtime.


	2. Chapter 2

“Are you sure?” Bucky stared at his law partners with a cocked eyebrow.

Sharon nodded briskly. “We have to take this case.”

“We don’t need the money,” Bucky replied.

“You’re hedging,” Carol replied evenly. “Why?”

He leaned back in his chair and thought about what they were asking. Their firm had a long history of doing pro bono cases for abused omegas - helping them get child support, find new housing, escape an abusive bond - so the helping wasn’t the issue. The issue was that the omega in this case wasn’t abused.

“She wants to start her own business,” Bucky replied, “which is illegal without the support of her alpha. I’m sorry he’s a dick, but I just can’t see how this is our business. We’re a small law firm in Boston. We’re not gonna take on the Supreme Court.”

Sharon blinked at him a few times, and he could feel the tension in the room rise. Before he could continue, she walked to the door and opened it a crack. “Darcy, do you have a minute?”

Their administrative assistant - a title he created after reading about it being used in Denmark, he hated secretary - walked into the room with a dubious expression on her face. “What do you need?”

“Darce,” Carol replied, “if you wanted to start your own business, what would Mark say?”

Darcy snorted. “Mark, my thinks-he’s-progressive-but-keeps-asking-weird-questions-about-my-IUD alpha? He’d laugh and tell me I was pretty.”

“Even if you had a full plan?”

She nodded. “I mean, I love Mark, and he gives me a lot of freedoms that other o’s don’t have and I’m grateful, but…”

“But what,” Bucky prompted when she trailed off.

“But what Bella Robertson wants to do is incredible, and her alpha is an ass for standing in her way,” Darcy said in a rush, “and nearly every alpha I know would do the exact same thing.”

“Tony and I wouldn’t,” Bucky said.

“So you want to leave omega rights up to the individual alpha?” Sharon said sharply.

“Whoa”--Bucky held up his hands--“you’re putting words in my mouth.”

“How many omegas do you know,” Darcy said, “who will be as honest with you as I am?”

Bucky was quiet for a moment as he went through his mental rolodex of friends and contacts. I would think that… no, because she’d be afraid of… well, what about… fuck… “Just you.”

“Buck,” Darcy replied, “you’re a great guy. You and Tony are absolutely the most liberal alphas I know, and I love that you go to marches to get the marriage contract re-written, and you want us to have more access to education, and I love you, I do, but you gotta stop thinking like an American alpha on this.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

She looked at the two other women in the room - for permission, Bucky realized with a jolt - before continuing. “You love the Danes, right? And the Fins? And how equal their societies are? Well they didn’t get that way because the laws changed themselves. You think I deserve the world, and you tell me that every day, but then you never actually do anything to change the way the world is. Marches are great, Buck, and I know you and Tony are generous with your money, but I’m looking at three of the smartest alphas in the city, and you have an opportunity in front of you to change that world, and you’re saying it’s not your business? God, Buck, let me type my resignation, because that’s not what I thought we were doing here.”

She let out a breath that was just this side of shaky, and he noticed that she looked at the two women again.

“You’re not leaving, Darcy Anne,” he replied quietly. “I hear you, I do, but -”

“If you hear her,” Sharon interjected quietly, “then there is no ‘but,’ not immediately. Don’t dismiss all of that, Buck.”

“I’m not,” he protested.

Carol peered at him. “I know you think you’re not, and I’m not trying to be patronizing to you, I swear, but you see this as a case that someone else can take, and we see this as a case that we have to take.”

Carol nodded to Darcy, who took her leave of the office, and the three partners sat in silence for a second while Bucky collected his thoughts.

“Am I allowed to speak now?”

Sharon pursed her lips and snorted. “Sure, Buck.”

“I don’t know what’s happening here,” he said slowly, “because I’m still a little surprised that we’re not all on the same page. Bella wants to start a company that makes children’s shoes. There are already a lot of those, so it’s not like this is anything noble. Her alpha said no, that he wasn’t comfortable with her interacting with other alphas outside the context of her role as mother and he wasn’t sure who would take care of their children if she was so distracted. I think that’s bullshit, but it’s his legal right, so her request for us to help her sue him is invalid.”

“Fair,” Sharon said. “But there’s something about this one that crawled under my skin, and I think we should at least hear her out.”

“We’ve turned down cases like this in the past,” Bucky reminded her.

“This is the 439th time we’ve been asked to do this,” Carol said quietly. “So if we can’t do this, specifically, there has to be something we can do.”

“We are a family law firm, who specializes in cases of omega abuse, and helping omegas argue for favorable marriage contracts,” Bucky replied.

“Aren’t you tired of that, though?” Carol said in response. “Why are we arguing for favorable contracts when we could be working towards no contracts?”

“We are working towards no contracts,” Bucky said. “Tony and I-”

“You donate money and you walk some streets,” Sharon replied sharply. “You haven’t used your law brain, and Tony hasn’t exactly put his connections or genius behind it.” He opened his mouth to protest, and she held up a hand. “I’m not saying that Maria and I have been any better, but we’re trying to change and I think it’s time for all of us to.”

“I was looking at statistics last night,” Carol replied. “And this just isn’t the world I want Monica growing up in.” Carol lost her omega in childbirth and was raising their daughter on her own. Bucky knew it bugged her how often people offered to help her take care of Monica in a tone that said alphas couldn’t raise children.

“So what you’re telling me is that while I think this is coming out of nowhere, this has been bubbling in you two for a long time?” Bucky looked back and forth between the two most important women in his life.

“Yes,” Carol said after a moment’s silence. “And we just ambushed you, didn’t we?”

“A little,” Bucky admitted, “and I’m having a hard time putting all these pieces together, so can we table this until tomorrow? Tony and I have a date night and we haven’t had one in about seven hundred years, so I’d love to actually be something close to on time.”

Sharon’s mouth quirked into a smile. “Of course, Buck, sorry.”

He held up his hands. “No apologies, I just need a minute. I’m not saying no, I’m just saying give me a minute.”

She nodded and went to leave his office when his voice stopped her.

“Do we pay Darcy enough?”

She turned and looked at Carol. “I think so?”

“Can we know so?” Bucky asked. “Can we make sure we’re paying everyone appropriately and not according to the Omega Wage Scale?”

“Yeah, that’s something I’ll look into right now,” Carol replied. The two women departed back to their respective offices, and Bucky sat in thought for a few minutes before hitting a button on his phone to page one of their researchers.

“Hey, Jordan?”

“Yeah, Boss?”

“Can you get me everything you can on laws around marriage contracts in countries that have gotten rid of them?”

“I think there’s only a handful.”

“Then a report by the middle of next week would work?”

“Shouldn’t be an issue.”

“Great, thanks.”

He ended the call and checked his phone.

_TextityText: Hubzone_

_Tony: Pep got the reservation. You still wanna?_

_Bucky bit his lip and leaned back in his chair._

_Bucky: I’m not sure, actually. Maybe it would just be better if we ordered pizza and fucked on the couch._

_Tony: We did that last night._

_Tony: Buckyyyyyyyyyyy, I wanna go ouuuuuuuuuuuttttttt_

_Bucky: I swear to god, Tones. The whining isn’t cute in person and it ain’t cute over text._

_Tony: Buckkkyyyyyyyyyyy_

Bucky snorted out loud and heard it echo off the walls of his office.

_Bucky: But why this one?_

_Tony: Curious, mostly, and I met the owner at a thing a bit ago and they said they’re attached to that hotel in Brookline that has the five-star rating and an impossible reservation policy. Evidently, you have to start at his club to get into the hotel. I’m curious._

_Bucky: You’re curious._

_Tony: Aren’t you? Only five-star in the city we haven’t been to._

Bucky considered this. In his life before Tony, having a list of five-star hotels that he was working his way through wasn’t really on his radar. And then, one day, Sharon took a case for a prep school friend of Carol’s and Bucky fell so hard for the expert witness that they’d had to find a new one pretty quickly.

_Bucky: If you seriously found us a club that’ll let me watch a built dude dance a little while you feel me up, then I’m in. I just don’t think you’ve found that._

_Tony: Four background checks and an approved membership application says I did._

_Bucky: Why’d you bother applying?_

_Tony: Because we can’t touch without one._

_Bucky: I know that, you idiot. You think you wanna touch?_

_Tony: Can we do this in person? Saying this out loud to JARVIS is getting annoying._

_Bucky: Your A.I. cannot judge you, Tony._

_Tony: Six years of marriage and you seriously think that. How adorable._

Bucky chuckled and put his phone on its charger before turning his attention to his inbox to clear out a few emails before heading home for the day.

* * *

“So,” Bucky said by way of greeting.

“Buttons,” Tony replied.

Bucky rolled his eyes and threw his suit jacket over the back of the couch. “Male omegas. That’s still what we’re talking about, right? Male o’s.”

Tony put down the tablet he had been scrolling through and looked up at his husband. “Yes, that’s what we’re talking about.”

“And this is not one of the ones that says they’re open to alpha pairs and then we get the judgy stares all night?” Bucky clarified.

Tony could smell the apprehension rolling off of Bucky. They’d been together long enough that their scents often didn’t even register with each other. They were just the perfumes of their lives - so for something to specifically register, it meant Bucky was feeling some sort of way. Tony patted the sofa next to him, inviting Bucky to collapse next to him for a minute.

“Baby,” Tony said softly as he pulled Bucky’s head into his lap and began to card his hands through Bucky’s hair, “I have paid an absolutely embarrassing amount of money to this place for our ogling rights. If someone even smells judgy, I’m getting a refund.”

Bucky smiled, but Tony could tell he didn’t fully believe him.

Their society was… odd. Tony traveled around the world enough to know that the conservative shift in alpha/omega rights that had happened in the 80s and 90s was pretty much a thing in the U.S. and not in most other places. Some progress had been made since then - omegas could retain their own paychecks again after that debale in ‘88 - but Tony wasn’t under the delusion that equity had been achieved.

Unlike a lot of his pals at boarding school, Tony was significantly more attracted to someone’s primary gender than their second. Omega, alphas, neutrals, switches - didn’t matter to him as long as they were men. His parents - good society couple that they were - had strong feelings about him marrying a female omega, and he’d slightly resigned himself to a political marriage that would produce the requisite amount of children and do his duty by his family name.

And then he’d met Bucky.

And he realized that his family name was pretty shitty and doing duty by it might just mean never passing it on to anyone.

He knew they were the most prominent male alpha/male alpha pair in Boston and one of the most famous in the country. He didn’t particularly care and neither did Bucky, but they were aware of it. They knew their choices were watched and analyzed; that if Bucky took a case that was even a shade of controversial, it would be picked up by the media; that if Tony opened a new division of Stark Industries, it would make headlines. Hell, the Fug Girls had a tag entirely for StarkBucks - as was their awkward couple portmanteau.

So their mutual questioning about adding a male omega to their dynamic - be it once or permanently - had been their fiercest kept secret. Their closest friends didn’t even know they’d been considering it until Tony’d had to let Pepper in on things from a legal and strategic perspective, and he'd spent the better part of a year vetting every single Alpha Club on the Eastern Seaboard to find one that would promise discretion and followed the laws governing Alpha Clubs to the letter.

Omera’s was it. He knew it.

“Plus, the shots of their dancers on the website look…” Tony trailed off.

Bucky grinned up at his husband. “Yeah?”

“There’s this blond one,” Tony began.

“No spoilers.”

“Well”--Tony bent to capture Bucky’s mouth--“then let’s get our fancy duds on and you can see him for yourself.”

* * *

“Welcome to Omera’s,” the hostess said. “My name is Gwen and I simply need to scan your ID chips before we can admit you.”

Bucky and Tony obediently held out their wrists and waited for Gwen’s device to light green. Bucky felt Tony exhale a little and wondered if his husband was concerned that Pepper hadn’t filed all the paperwork correctly.

Which was insane, because the last time Pepper Potts Rhodes made a mistake on critical paperwork, Bucky was pretty sure Clinton had been in office.

“Your private booth is right this way.” She smiled demurely and began to lead them to their booth. Bucky noticed at that point that all the staff were in corsets and a whole lot of blood rushed to his dick. God, his husband knew him well.

They were settled quickly in what was essentially a private room with a view of the dance floor. It was up six steps and entirely enclosed. Gwen hit four buttons on the glass and a door slid open, allowing them inside. There was a small table with drinks and snacks already present and a semi-circular couch in deep red velvet. The woodwork was rich walnut and the whole effect was that they were in a very indulgent snug - cut off from the world if they wanted to be, but still present within it.

Gwen gestured to a panel on the side of the booth. “Mr. Stark, I imagine you’re familiar with our ordering and booth control system.”

Tony’s eyes went wide, and Bucky bit back a grin. Tony had designed that model about three years ago for St. Jude’s - a way for kids to get some autonomy in how they ordered food or watched movies, but that could be completely programmable to their individual limitations. Of course, other industries began putting in orders as well - but they’d never seen it in the wild like this before.

“I believe I am, Gwen,” Tony smiled warmly at the woman.

“Now, to explain a little bit, this glass is one-way only. You can see everything, but no one can see in unless you choose to defrost the glass or leave the door open. The only handprints allowed to open your booth when it is privatized are your assigned attendant and the four roving bar staff who will deliver food and drink while you and your attendant are otherwise engaged. You are cleared for all contact with your attendant and can find all forms of protection in that cabinet.” She gestured to a small set of drawers tucked near the entrance.

“Omera’s closes for business at 2am and at that point, you will be asked to either end your evening or move to the hotel room we have already booked for you at the Brookline Boudoir. There is a private entrance your attendant will take you to should you choose to avail yourself of that option.”

“We like consent,” Bucky said slowly.

“Your attendant will inform you of his safe words,” Gwen answered smoothly. “And, I will tell you off the record that your attendant is very clear about his boundaries so you do not need to worry. He wants to make you happy by all means, but he believes the best way to do that is to make sure everything is consensual.”

Something twigged in Bucky's subconscious that maybe there was more to that statement. He made a note to investigate the fine print of their membership agreement once they were home.

“Now, I have taken the liberty of having drinks and nibbles brought for you,” she said with a smile. “Ms. Potts informed me that Mr. Stark likes his whiskey exceptionally Irish and with one ice cube and Mr. Barnes likes martinis with good gin and a healthy amount of olives. Those drinks were set as your default order, so to get another round, simply hit ‘one’ on your panel. Should you want to branch out, you can do so by pressing ‘menu.’”

“No voice activation?” Tony asked.

“Not in this model,” Gwen replied.

“With what I just paid, you all can afford it,” Tony remarked with a laugh. “But fine. We’ll slum it.”

“Gwen, thank you so much for your explanation and hospitality,” Bucky said, making sure to make eye contact because he had a feeling she didn’t get that often. Not because of how she acted, but because he’d met alphas at Alpha Clubs.

“My absolute pleasure, Mr. Barnes.” She smiled, and Bucky was pleased to see it reached her eyes. “Your attendant tonight is Steve -”

Tony made a small sound that caused Bucky to whip his head. “That’s the blond.”

“ - and he is the best male omega we have, to be honest, so you’re in for a treat.”

“Again, thanks Gwen,” Tony said and reached into his pocket to pull out a tip for her. She waved him off.

“I can only accept tips from clients I personally attend to,” she replied. “Thank you, kindly.”

“Well, I feel very attended to,” Tony replied and pressed the cash into her hand.

She licked her lips nervously - _odd_ , Bucky thought - and tucked the bill inside her corset. She whispered a ‘thank you’ and then scuttled out of the booth.

“Well, that was a little strange,” Tony said.

“Eh, maybe she’s had some drama,” Bucky replied. “Want to see if their liquor quality matches the bill we paid to get here?”

They settled into the booth, each grabbing their drinks and choosing to leave the door open until their attendant arrived.

“So we got your blond,” Bucky remarked.

“Oh, I believe he’s our blond for the next”--Tony checked his watch--“five hours.”

“Dancing, touching, fucking, and gin for five hours. I have no idea what to do with myself,” Bucky replied.

“I have some ideas.” Tony grinned and leaned in for a kiss. It was gentle, almost betraying the vibe of the room, but perfect. Because no matter what happened over the next several hours - the fun they would have, the memories they would make - they’d still be them.

“Excuse me, gentlemen.”

Bucky looked up to see a walking wet dream hovering at the entrance to their booth.

“I’m Steve and I’ll be your attendant this evening. Care to get started?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> See you next week for Booth 17 activities!


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to [kocuria](https://kocuria.tumblr.com/) for the drool-worthy art in this chapter. I think I've hoodwinked her into more, so get excited!
> 
> As always, if anyone is visually inspired by this or any of my works, you are encouraged to create! If you want, it'll get embedded in the story or as an added chapter after the fact. More art in fandom!

“You obviously know who we are,” Tony said after Steve made himself comfortable in the booth - or, as comfortable as one could be in a tightly laced corset.

“I do,” Steve confirmed.

“And you don’t have a problem?” James piped up, and Steve could smell something that said ‘apprehension’ wafting off of the alpha. His omega instincts to soothe activated.

“No,” Steve affirmed. “Both as an employee who isn’t allowed to have problems and a human being who definitely doesn’t. I… Never mind. No, no problem.”

“No.” Tony shook his head and leaned forward a bit, piercing Steve with his eyes. “Say what you were going to say. If we’re all going to do what I think we’re going to do, let’s do it honestly.”

Steve met his gaze and hoped he wasn’t calling Tony on a bluff. “I grew up being told alphas couldn’t feel love, that they only felt obligation and protection and that’s why alpha/omega pairs were the most natural. I kinda assumed it was bullshit and I’m glad to have data to prove it.”

A small smile graced Tony’s lips. “We’re happy to provide you with more.”

James laughed, a sound that bordered on a giggle if alphas were able to giggle, which Steve had been told they…

He shook his head quickly, to shake ideas out of it. Maybe the love thing wasn’t the only ‘fact’ about alphas he’d gotten wrong.

“I imagine that you’ll do that as this night progresses,” Steve said.

Tony reached for his drink and took a long sip. After he put his whiskey back down, he laced his fingers through James’ and then leaned forward once again. “What’s on the table, handsome?”

“Me, if you want it,” Steve said with a laugh, “both metaphorically and literally. I can dance, I can strip, I can suck, I can fuck. You control the menu.”

“Nope,” James said, with a hint of steel Steve wasn’t prepared for. “We can’t play like that. You still gotta be a little into it.”

Steve paused and reminded himself that alphas thought omegas consented to being in these clubs - that they chose this life entirely outside of circumstances and that employment indicated consent. He reminded himself he should be grateful that they wanted an ‘above and beyond’ situation and not grumpy that they had no idea, truly, about the world they lived in.

Besides, if Steve was completely honest with himself, these were two of the hottest men on the planet and the idea that he could be knotted by either or each of them by the end of the night sent blood to his cock and slick to his ass. “My limits are on the application that you were sent. Whoever arranged this evening had to look over them, so -”

“My assistant knows me,” Tony said with a smile, “but not that well, and she’d know I’d want to hear it from you. So, handsome, let’s set some ground rules.”

“Alright, Mr. Stark,” Steve said, making sure to keep the crack out of his voice because could this actually be happening?

“First of all,” Tony said with a cackle, “it’s Tony and that’s Bucky.”

“Come again?”

James - Bucky - laughed. “Old nickname from childhood and I use it with family, friends, and now sexual partners. I ain’t ever knotted anyone who called me James, and I don’t want to start now.”

Steve nodded - he could appreciate that. If it was up to him, he’d never be knotted by anyone who called him either ‘Steven’ or ‘pretty omega’.

Not that it was usually up to him.

“Steve,” he affirmed. “I don’t like getting called ‘omega’ when you’re in me.”

“Understood,” Tony said with a decisive nod. “Any hard limits?”

Steve shook his head. He wasn’t legally allowed to have any. “Hard preferences, though. I don’t like any part of me being referred to with female anatomical names, I don’t like pet play, and if it’s really up to me, I’d like to avoid any scenes with bodily products that aren’t usually involved in sex.”

Bucky nodded. “I’m fairly allergic to vaginas, so I ain’t got no interest in referring to your hole as a pussy. And Tony faints at the sight of blood.”

“I do not.”

“You faint at the sight of other people’s blood,” Bucky corrected, and the grin on Tony’s face made Steve yearn for the rest of the story so strongly that it almost took what little breath he had left.

“So we’re all in accord on that,” Tony said, the smile remaining in place. “What do you like?”

Now, that did steal his breath. Steve could count on one hand the number of clients who had ever asked that question in his decades of life and the idea that…

“I like sucking cock while I’m knotted,” Steve said evenly, and he swatted away the pesky voice that told him he was trying to scare them off with his assertion of agency. They sure seemed too good to be true, but he might as well lean in. “I like my collarbone sucked on a bit, I like bruises, I like being tied up, I like talking while a knot’s deflating, and I like jokes.”

“You like jokes,” Bucky repeated slowly.

“Yeah, not like knock knock ones or anything, but…” Steve sighed and ran his hand through his hair. “I do this for a living and there isn’t anything I haven’t seen. Bodies are weird and no matter how buffed and waxed I am, I’m still not a doll. So when something funny happens, I like to make fun of it.”

“You like feeling human,” Tony said thoughtfully, “which is good because we like that, too.”

“First time we fucked,” Bucky said casually, “we learned exactly how much prep a knot takes for an alpha.”

Steve fought a smile, thinking of the alphas he’d shoved artificial knots into over the years.

“Oh, no, laugh if you want,” Bucky said. “It was humiliating and hilarious.”

Steve let his face fall into a full smile and something in him settled a bit. For the next five-ish hours, or however long they had paid for, he could act maybe a little like himself. He vaguely heard Val’s walk-on music (Lizzo’s “Good as Hell”) as he calculated his next question. If the crew could clear 40k that night, it really would mean an easier tomorrow for them all. Stark and Barnes could probably drop 5k on drinks and food alone if he dragged this out, but…

But god he wanted a night to himself for once. The most selfish thought he’d had in a long time crossed his mind - being with these two would be a vacation - and he could basically feel the rest of the team telling him to go for it.

“What do you two like and how long do you want clothes to remain on?”

He’d never been that blatant with a client before - ever. There was an elaborate game they were supposed to play, a script to follow, in these booths. There was demuring, there was dancing, there was some burlesque-style teasing. They had to keep people in these booths for a minimum of three hours before they were allowed to even suggest going over to Peggy’s. Just like omega bodies were commodities, alpha wallets were the same.

Both Tony and Bucky’s breaths seemed to catch at Steve’s forwardness, and his stomach dropped. _Fuck, maybe they didn’t want a mouthy omega, fuck I blew this, fuck -_

His panic attack was cut off by Bucky leaning towards him and grabbing him by the tie. He was pulled until he was nose to nose with the other man and then Bucky let out a feral growl. “We like smart as fuck omegas who like double knots, and we like taking our time unwrapping them. You in a hurry to get naked or can I stare at those laces on your back a while longer?”

And oh jaysus fuck, what a vacation this night was going to be.

* * *

* * *

If Tony didn’t know his husband, he’d still be able to tell that Bucky was so beyond blissed out that he’d lost use of the English language.

Steve looked up at Tony under eyelashes that probably could scrape the ceiling if they tested it and popped himself off of Bucky’s cock for a second. “I think you’ll like the next act.”

Tony gaped at Steve. “You’re giving Buckster the blow job of his life and you can still tell me what’s coming up next?”

Steve nodded. “That’s the opening strains of ‘Wagon Wheel’, which means it’s Scott’s turn. He’s a little awkward at first, still new, but he does this thing with his ass I think you’ll like.”

Tony shook his head slowly and chuckled as he turned his attention to the stage, quickly drawn in by the awkward but endearing act that was happening on stage. _Oh, assless chaps. I do enjoy those._

However, just as Steve could multitask, so could Tony and as half his attention was on the stage, the other was on the man they’d been with for the past several hours.

When he’d found Omera’s, Tony had assumed a gorgeous male omega would grind on him and Bucky for a little bit, that maybe they’d blow him or he’d blow them, that discussion of knotting would happen, but that the event itself might not occur. Bucky had a thing with scent compatibility for anything more intense than blow jobs, so Tony wasn’t counting any chickens before they were hatched. His job was hell, and so was Buck’s, and they just wanted to let loose where they could guarantee no invading cell phone footage could be sold of them.

Especially not if Tony took Pepper’s suggestion about a mayoral run seriously.

He’d lived his entire life in the public eye. Photos of him fresh out of his mom had been sold to the Daily Mail when he was two days old and they’d never really let up since. His presentation as an alpha affected the stock market, as did his marriage to a male alpha. His fashion decisions set trends, his inventions changed the world, and he understood all the responsibilities that came along with that. Sure, his teens were a bit … misguided… but whose weren’t, and the minute he laid eyes on James Buchanan Barnes, he grew up quick.

And now, kneeling before that miracle man who had been the rock of Tony’s life for the better part of a decade was someone who smelled like he fit with them.

Steve the Blond Omega was a surprise, and Tony loathed surprises he didn’t invent or cause. He liked to anticipate and plan and prepare - it was both a hobby and a necessity to be a futurist when you were the sole heir to the largest privately held family company in the United States that your great-great-great grandfather had built in the early 1800s. Surprises were problematic, and Tony did everything he could to avoid them.

The first one he hadn’t been able to avoid had ended up as his bonded mate.

What was gonna happen with this one?

* * *

Steve laid in the dark as he attempted to catalogue everything that had happened over the past few hours.

First, there was The Tony of it all. Sometime in the night, it had come up that Steve and Tony had met before.

_“No shit?”_

_Steve felt himself blush a bit. “I looked a little different. It was years ago.”_

_“I would have remembered you, handsome, so I’d say so,” Tony affirmed._

_“Was he a dick?” Bucky said from where he was nuzzled into Steve’s side. “At those meet and greets, he’s a dick a lot.”_

_“Excuse you,” Tony said indignantly from Steve’s other side. “I am a delight at all times.”_

_“He gets grumpy when he’s hungry and he never fucking remembers to eat,” Bucky muttered, and Steve’s heart went boom. If the four orgasms he’d already had didn’t kill him, their affection for each other might._

_“He wasn’t, actually,” Steve said. “You were the first alpha outside my family to ever make eye contact with me. I felt… valued. It was special.”_

_Neither alpha responded to that, and Steve panicked he’d made a misstep until Tony moved to straddle Steve and peer directly into his eyes. “You are valuable, Steve. I’m glad I knew it back then so I could know it even more now.”_

And then there was the whole thing with Bucky’s scent.

_“Is that”--Steve heaved out a breath around Buck’s cock--“watermelon?”_

_“You fucking smell that?” Bucky’s voice was full of wonder. “Tony’s the only one who smells it.”_

_“It’s like his cock turns into a Jolly Rancher, right?” Tony said excitedly. “See, Buckybaby, I’m not weird. Steve thinks so too.”_

_“But the doc said that was a mate thing,” Bucky said, obviously confused, and since Steve didn’t want to touch that word with a ten foot pole, he simply swallowed Bucky back down again._

There were so many other small moments that were running through Steve’s mind like a slideshow. The way Tony smiled as Bucky and Steve realized they both hated the same bands, the way his hands felt wrapped around the silk ties Bucky used to secure him to the bed, the way the light caught Tony’s wedding ring as he jacked Steve off while Bucky was knotted in him.

For his one night of vacation that year, he’d certainly made the most of it.

 _And now it’s time to never think of them again,_ Steve, he scolded himself. _Because even if they come back and request me again, they are not Richard Gere and this is not a movie. No one is rescuing me from this life._

He twisted his head slightly and peered at the clock - 4:45. Fuck. He was supposed to leave any room at Peggy’s at 4am at the latest, unless they had paid for a full night.

Steve tried to extricate himself from the pile of handsome the bed had become, but he must have moved a little too abruptly because Tony roused immediately.

“I did not start that fire,” Tony said, words slightly slurred from sleep but still impressively coherent.

“Babe, we’re in Boston, not Calgary,” Bucky muttered from Steve’s other side.

 _What is their life?_ Steve wondered for the approximate seven hundredth time since he’d met them.

“Oh, sorry. Still didn’t, though,” Tony clarified. “Why are we awake?”

“I’m way over contract,” Steve whispered. “The front desk has everything you need for a discreet exit, I’ll -”

He was cut off by Bucky pulling back down to the pillow. “We’re the clients, true or false.”

“True.”

“Then you leave when we say you leave, and I ain’t finished with you yet, gorgeous,” Bucky said with a sly wink.

“It’s just that the contract - ”

Tony had his phone in his hand and was punching the screen before Steve could finish explaining why he needed to go. “I just added full-night preferences to our profile,” Tony said as he threw the phone on the floor and flopped himself back into Steve’s side. “I don’t know why we didn’t have them already. We’re snugglers.”

“True story,” Bucky said.

In Steve’s nearly 10 years of being a sex worker, he had never had anyone add the overnight package in the middle of things. He’d had plenty of people schedule more time at the club to see him right after they finished, he’d even had people ask for exclusivity contracts, but Tony just blithely added _three thousand more dollars_ to their account so he and his husband could _snuggle_ with Steve.

He passed ‘what the fuck’ somewhere around midnight, so he had no idea where he was now.

“Handsome,” Bucky said into Steve’s shoulder, “I can hear you thinking from here. Do you need to go or did your contract just say you had to?”

“Contract,” Steve whispered, not trusting himself to keep the wonder or desire out of his voice.

“Then sleep, sweetheart,” Bucky replied, and Steve did just that.

* * *

“So how does this work from here?” Bucky asked many hours later as they finished the breakfast that had been delivered to the room.

“In terms of your club membership?” Steve asked. “There’s no bells and whistles unless you want them. You can show up or you can make a reservation for a specific booth or -”

“Stevie,” Bucky said calmly as he drained his coffee cup, “let’s cut the shit. How does it work from here to see you again?”

Steve blinked rapidly, and Bucky wasn’t sure what to make of Steve’s confusion. Surely Steve couldn’t think this would be a one and done situation?

“Just me? There are a lot of other omegas on offer -”

“You ain’t food,” Bucky growled slightly.

“Hey,” Tony said as he emerged from the bathroom, “no pissing contests with hypothetical alphas, Build-a-Buck. Steve, we aren’t interested in other omegas at Omera’s, we are interested in you. How do we make sure we only spend time with you?”

“You can reserve me,” Steve said, and his voice caught in a way that made Bucky pause. Something about everything felt weird, and Bucky didn’t like weird. “Just use the app you have now and it’ll show you when I’m reserved or not.”

Tony crossed the room and retrieved his phone from where it had landed on the floor the previous evening. Bucky watched his face twist into a frown. “What’s the face, babe?”

“Steve,” Tony said slowly, “you don’t have any days off listed here for the rest of the month.”

“I know,” Steve said. “It’s not a big deal, I’m just covering for some people who have vacations.”

That answer came really fast, like Steve was used to defending his schedule, and the lawyer in Bucky took notice. “But it’s still illegal. You get 36 hours off for every 100 worked, the same for every omega.”

“I know,” Steve said, his tone thick like he was speaking to a particularly stubborn child, “and I get to waive those should I choose, and I choose to.”

The room smelled funny, and Bucky’s eyes whipped to Tony’s. His husband noticed it, too. ‘Anxious omega’ wasn’t any one’s favorite perfume.

“Got it, handsome,” Tony said smoothly, and Bucky smelled the waft of comfort pheromones that Tony sent out into the room and hoped Steve’s hindbrain would respond. “We just like you an awful lot.”

“I like you guys, too,” Steve said, and Bucky was gratified to see a blush spread over his cheeks and down his throat. Bucky had chased that blush a few times the previous night, and ‘Steve Rogers Blushing’ was rocketing to the top of his kink list.

“Well, your next entire evening I could book is Wednesday, so we will see you then,” Tony said. “Now, for the tip-”

“Cash if you could,” Steve said quickly.

“The contract said -” Tony started.

“I know, but if you are going to choose to tip, which thank you, then I’d prefer it in cash and not on the app.”

Again with the funny smell and the weird feeling in Bucky’s gut. “Why?”

"Well,” Steve replied, running a hand through his hair, “one of the girls needs braces, and the payment’s due tomorrow, and the app won’t release the funds in time for me to pay the orthodontist."

Tony and Bucky made eye contact, and then Tony asked slowly. "Why are you paying for someone's braces?"

“Yeah,” Bucky piped in, “ain't that Pierce's job as your defacto alpha and owner of the club, etcetera?"

Steve simply stared at them blankly and licked his bottom lip. “Can I have it in cash or not?”

Tony headed for his wallet and peeled a few hundred dollars in cash off the billfold and handed it to Steve. “You can.”

“Thanks,” Steve said and the smile he sent them was … off, as far as Bucky was concerned. He wasn’t an idiot, he knew Steve was a performer and that a lot of the night was probably Steve faking things, but Bucky would bet his partnership share that the three of them had also made a true connection. And the smile Steve threw now looked like the one he gave them when he first entered the booth, not the one Bucky had coaxed out of him at 1am when Steve’d told them about the birthday party the staff had thrown for Gwen the Door Girl the week before.

“All tips in cash from now on?” Tony clarified.

“It’s faster,” Steve said as he tucked the bills into his pocket. “I’ll see you on Wednesday.”

“Looking forward to it,” Bucky replied back, and Tony called the same.

The door slammed, and they looked at each other for a beat before Bucky spoke. “I have no idea what the living fuck just happened -”

“-but that was the best sex we’ve had in literal years,” Tony finished, and Bucky nodded.

“And I’d like to explore what that means and how we possibly make sure it happens literally as often as possible, but I tabled a really big convo with Sharon and Carol yesterday, so I need to go to the office.”

Tony grabbed the last of their personal effects, and they headed for the door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tune in next week when Tony gets curious.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to Jeh for cheering, Ferret for betaing, and ko for more art!

“So they’re coming back tomorrow?”

Steve nearly jumped out of his skin at the sound of Val’s voice. “Geez, Val, give a guy a warning.”

“I have called your name three times since I walked into the room,” Val said and raised an eyebrow.

He sighed. “Yeah, they’re coming back tomorrow.”

She nodded. “I’ll cover for you again.”

“You don’t-”

“Steven Grant Rogers, I swear to all the gods that if you even… I’ll cover for you. Go chase those orgasms, big boy,” she said and kissed his forehead quickly before she left the office.

When he’d stumbled back into the staff quarters after his night with Bucky and Tony, she’d been waiting for him with a cup of coffee and a list of questions. He knew he had missed the morning meeting that Pierce insisted everyone attend, but had hoped that whatever Tony had transferred into the club’s coffers would make up for it.

_“Whatever you did with Stark and Barnes,” she said by way of introduction, “made him creepily happy, so let’s make sure you can do it again.”_

_He pursed his lips. “I’ll take it Tony tipped pretty big?”_

_“Between you, Nebbie, me, and Sam - who must have told Thor how bad things were getting - we cleared the bar easily. Final total was $39,829.”_

_“Thank fuck,” Steve said on an exhale. “That covers the tax bill that’s due on Friday. I’m sure that’s what he was worried about.”_

_“I’m sure,” Val replied in a voice that said she was the opposite of sure. “Alex is so concerned with legality, after all.”_

_His eyes whipped to hers. “You got evidence finally?”_

_“No.” She shook her head. “But the guy I was with last night is a hacker. I’ll work him as best I can to see if we can trust him. But, not for nothing, Stark built the system we use. Can your magic hole -”_

_“It wasn’t like that,” Steve said quickly, and Val gasped._

_“Steve,” she said softly, and he shook his head._

_“It was wonderful, Val, and I haven’t had that much fun or felt that relaxed in a few years. I’m not talking about it again because they’re just clients, and we all know what happens to those of us who dream about getting rescued.”_

_She was quiet for a few moments before she replied. “Yeah, but that doesn’t mean that hope isn’t what we all live on here anyway.”_

She’d gone on to tell him that Pierce had asked after him, and Val said that Steve had put it on the calendar that Barnes and Stark were all nighters, even though that was a lie, she gambled that Pierce never really checked the staff calendar except when it suited him, and it paid off. Pierce was pleased at the extra revenue before launching into his laundry list of complaints against the omegas.

And then he’d come into the dressing room that night - a blatant violation of protocol - and told them they needed another $30k.

Steve was mystified - where was all the money going?

But what was really knocking him off his rocker was that he’d gotten messages from both Bucky and Tony on the club’s app.

It wasn’t secure, and Steve knew that Pierce had Rumlow monitoring all the messages for any hints of insubordination, so he never said anything incriminating back - like that he loved how they treated him like a human, or that he’d nearly cried the following night when he had to take a different knot. Instead, he flirted and sent pictures of the corset he was going to wear, and Bucky made thirsty comments about different kinds of knots in and on Steve.

He was in so much trouble and he knew it. He just couldn’t decide if he wanted to do anything about it.

* * *

“Baby,” Bucky yawned at two am when he found Tony on the couch, poking away at four different laptops. “Come to bed.”

Tony didn’t seem to hear him. Instead, he kept muttering to himself and tapping away, so Bucky moved closer.

“Anthony,” Bucky made sure to use his courtroom voice to get his husband’s attention. Tony startled and turned towards Bucky’s voice.

“Oh, hi, honey. I didn’t hear you.” Tony smiled and then turned back to the screens. “I just need a few more minutes.”

“It’s two in the morning, you ding dong,” Bucky chuckled and settled himself on the couch next to Tony. He picked up one of the laptops and started scrolling through screens. Tony slapped his hand.

“Don’t fuck with anything, I’m on a trail,” Tony muttered.

“Of hunting rabbits?”

Tony turned slightly and stuck his tongue out.

“No, wait, the Oregon Trail? Should I be concerned we’re both about to get dysentery?”

“You know, you were absolutely not this much of a shit when we got married,” Tony replied.

“You’re right, I was more of one.” Bucky put the laptop back down and nuzzled into Tony’s side. “I want you to come to bed, I’m lonely.”

Tony turned slighty at the hint of a whine that Bucky put in his voice and kissed the top of his head. “I’ve been working since nine to hack into this one particular server, and I finally got in. I gotta be quick and get back out, so give me ten minutes?”

Bucky sighed. “I thought you gave up Anonymous.”

“I did,” Tony said. “This is just for me.”

“Why are you hacking into servers for you?” Bucky prompted.

“Because this is the one that Alexander Pierce uses under five layers of VPN protection and hosted off-shore to store all the data on Omera,” Tony replied.

“Yeah, but lots of people go nuts with privacy,” Bucky replied.

“True, but put on your lawyer hat for a minute,” Tony said. “We both thought Steve’s reaction to the cash was weird - what alpha won’t pay for something as basic as braces when the club obviously does well, based on what they want to charge us for a premium membership - and then I start digging and all of their publicly filed tax returns have Pierce running the club as an inheritance, but the club was passed down through the Rogers family, not the Pierce one, and Pierce has no real records in the U.S. until ten years ago when he arrived from Russia. Also, the club was named Oishin for thirty-six years and had an excellent reputation and now…”

“Okay,” Bucky conceded. “But also, society was a bit different about Alpha Clubs back then. I mean, even when we were growing up, you remember what we were told about them?”

“Howard sent me to one the night I presented,” Tony replied. A scent of burned rubber wafted through the air, the way it always did when Tony thought about his father.

“Yeah, and George bought me a membership when he heard I was into alphas,” Bucky replied. “Told me I just didn’t understand what getting a knot up felt like and thought some prime o ass would convert me.”

“I love the story of when he found out you like both,” Tony grinned.

Bucky chuckled and laced their fingers together. “But then that Vanity Fair exposé hit and we all started to learn what omegas had known all along, evidently - that those clubs were horrible and unregulated. Forced sterilizations, unsafe abortions, buying and selling omegas between them, withholding food when an alpha wasn’t fully satisfied, whatever the hell that meant. Now, do you know any alpha we trust that would go within a yard of one who didn’t have inspection certificates?”

Tony shook his head. “Which is why this irks me so much. We did our research on that one. We signed so many consent forms and we were shown ones that Steve signed, too. They’re following every regulation to the letter.”

“So why is Steve paying for braces for the girls?” Bucky replied.

“Exactly,” Tony sighed. “So why is Steve paying for braces for the girls.”

They sat in companionable silence for a few minutes until Bucky broke it. “We always said this was a trial, seeing if we really wanted an omega, or if we were just horny fuckers caught up on a fantasy.”

“And?”

“I want him,” Bucky whispered. “And it scares me. But it’s been three days and I can’t get his scent off of me because I haven’t even tried and I feel like I’ve been counting the minutes until tomorrow.”

“I haven’t come that quickly since the first time we were together,” Tony confessed. “And that was after eleven months of foreplay.”

“I wanted you the first night,” Bucky replied. “But you were playing all hard to get, parading that ass around me.”

This was a well-worn routine, full of teasing, and love, and the deep truth that there was no force in the universe that could tear James Buchanan Barnes and Anthony Edward Stark apart. Soulmates, had they existed, probably wouldn’t have even quite touched what they felt about each other.

“Well, you’d flip your hair at me and get me all hot and bothered and then tell me you’d see me the next time in court,” Tony protested. He shifted himself so that he was stradling Bucky. “I was only an expert witness, James, what was I supposed to do with that?”

“I liked it when you bought me donuts and pretended they were for Sharon,” Bucky replied, running his hands up Tony’s hips and under his shirt.

“They were for Sharon,” Tony breathed. “I swing all ways, handsome, and her ass puts yours to shame.”

“Blasphemy, Stark. I’m gonna have to shut you up, I guess, find another use for that mouth than spreading lies.”

“I gotta get out of Pierce’s server first,” Tony whispered.

“You’re going to do it sitting on my lap and feeling me get harder,” Bucky growled. He flipped Tony around so that the smaller man was facing the coffee table and therefore the laptops, but he placed his hands firmly on Tony’s hips so that he was flush back against Bucky’s groin.

“That’s only going to distract me.” Tony wiggled his ass slightly, and Bucky’s grip tightened.

“God, if people knew what a fucking brat you were, they’d never believe you were an alpha.” Bucky began to nibble along the back of Tony’s neck, sucking a bruise into the skin just below his hairline.

“Well, we’ve been defying orientation expectations since we met, babycakes, why stop now?”

A few seconds later, Tony shut both laptops and arched himself back into Bucky. “I’m ready for bed, husband.”

“Fucking finally,” Bucky said. He released his hands and shoved Tony up into a standing position. Before Tony had a chance to do anything other than take a few breaths, Bucky slung him over his shoulder and marched them to the bedroom.

“You’re ridiculous,” Tony protested through laughter.

“You make me that way,” Bucky responded as he threw Tony down onto the bed and stripped off his shirt. “I wasn’t coming out for this, I swear.”

“And yet.” Tony motioned to Bucky’s fully erect cock.

“And yet,” Bucky replied, his voice softening a little.

Tony grinned and reached into the bedside table for the artificial slick. “When you’re exhausted at work tomorrow, you cannot blame me.”

“Oh, I will, don’t worry,” Bucky replied.

* * *

* * *

“Booth 21 this time,” Gwen murmured to Steve, and he nodded. “Oh, and Steve?”

He turned towards her.

“Please have fun.” The request was a whisper and yet it was the loudest thing he’d heard all day. “We can take care of ourselves for one night, I promise. Whatever happens, we’ll cover for you and we want you to have fun.”

“You turned off my communicator, didn’t you?”

She blinked twice. “Mr. Stark asked for exclusivity while on premises. I am simply acquiescing to the client’s request.”

He rolled his lips into his teeth to contain a smile. “I love you, Gwennie.”

“Mutual, Dad,” she said with a wink.

Steve found Tony and Bucky mid-conversation and could hear them before they saw him. Booth 21 was basically its own island - Tony must have said he didn’t need a good view of the stage because they only put high rollers in there when that was the case. They’d be essentially alone even before (or if) they stumbled to Peggy’s.

“Do you trust your gut or no?” Tony said.

“I do,” Bucky said with a sigh, and Steve caught a waft of a scent he didn’t recognize. It was… motor oil? Was that what Bucky smelled like when he was upset? A not-so-small part of Steve cheered at the idea that he hadn’t smelled anything like it when they were together the first time. A primal part of Steve hurried his steps because maybe he could help, maybe he could soothe, maybe he could change that smell.

“Then if your gut says this is hinky, then it’s probably hinky,” Tony reasoned.

“I don’t think so,” Bucky replied just as Steve reached the booth. “I think this is me being an alpha and not an omega and Darcy’s probably right. Oh, hiya, handsome.”

Bucky and Tony both visibly brightened when Steve stepped into the booth and every instinct within him felt sated.

He had no idea what to do with that.

“Everything okay?” Steve asked.

Bucky nodded and held out his hand for Steve to take it. “My law firm just took on a new client and something feels really off about why the omega is pushing so hard to break her marriage contract when nothing seems wrong. I can’t wrap my head around it, but my clerk tells me it’s because I can’t see the client’s side of things.”

“Do you want to talk about it?” Steve settled on the couch next to Bucky.

“Not particularly,” Bucky said, “because I’m now on hour nine of talking about it today and I have some other things I’d like to do with my time tonight.”

A part of Steve was disappointed - it sounded like something he wanted to hear more about - and part was pleased. The ‘pleased’ part was also the ‘horny as fuck’ part.

“Different corset,” Tony observed.

“Well,” Steve said, running his hands along the front ribbing, “you guys liked the blue so much, I was wondering what you’d feel about red. Tony said it was his favorite color.”

Tony’s eyes glazed over a bit, and Steve could tell the alpha was letting his instincts take over for a minute. “My favorite shade of red is the way you blush, but I suppose the way you’re wearing this crimson will do, too.”

Bucky spun quickly and straddled Steve. “Ground rules the same as last time?”

“Yes,” Steve replied on a husky breath.

Bucky responded by crushing his mouth to Steve’s and undulating his hips just enough that Steve whimpered into Bucky’s mouth. Bucky pulled back and rested their foreheads together, but did not stop the motion of his hips. “Oh, you like that?”

“He certainly smells like he does,” Tony observed, and Steve felt him move closer and fold into Steve’s side. Tony sniffed at Steve’s bonding gland and must have been happy with the scent there because the next thing Steve knew, Tony was kitten licking the bonding spot, and Steve thought he was going to explode.

The previous visit had been preamble. Talking, teasing, tasting… They’d certainly had sex in a variety of ways, but they’d been learning each other. Logic said they still should be, but scents and instinct said they already did.

Bonding, as far as society was concerned, was both a legal and emotional act. Legally, it was a contract and the U.S. was one of the few western countries that still had an omega’s representative alpha sign the contract with them. Senator Graham, when he’d last been pressed on why that was important, had responded that a bonding contract was about protecting the omega from their baser instincts.

Steve had snorted so loudly that he actually broke a blood vessel in his nose.

There were many bonded contracts that happened without the emotional act of bonding. Some omegas had under-developed glands and so the bonding never took. Some alphas had bonded before and weren’t interested in doing so again. Some contracts were simply that - contracts. No emotion attached at all. Historically, that’s what they’d been until the Omega Rights Act of 1972, which also legalized alpha/alpha pairs and required an omega signature on a contract instead of just their designated alpha.

With the ORA, the culture slowly shifted, and Steve had been raised on the idea that omegas could have some hand in the choice of their bonded mates and that emotions could enter into things. Sarah’s generation still believed that alphas could only feel protective instincts, not genuine love, but Steve’s was full of evidence to the contrary.

Two of whom he was making out with right now.

“Stevie,” Bucky said between kisses, “can I unlace you?”

“Slowly, Buckaroo, please do it slowly,” Tony murmured, and suddenly Steve was on his stomach.

“Fuck, I didn’t wait,” Bucky swore at himself, and Steve smiled into the cushion.

“I didn’t want you to,” Steve turned his head to reply.

Both men groaned and moved Steve again so they were all on the widest part of the seating area. “Steve,” Tony asked, “how valuable is the shirt you’ve got underneath this beauty?”

“We get them from Cintas - just uniform shirts. Why?”

Steve was answered with a ripping sensation as someone tore strips of the shirt off. “Because I need your skin and I need it now,” Tony replied.

Hands unfastened the laces slowly and then the shirt would rip again. Lips would meet his back, teeth would join sometimes, and the pair took an agonizingly long time to de-corset him. By the time they were finished, he was so hard that he was leaking both out of his cock and his ass.

Steve was about to ask if they wanted to head to Peggy’s when there was another rip, and Steve realized that his pants had gone the way of his shirt.

“Took a gamble they’re from Cintas, too,” Tony said and then Steve felt two tongues dive into his ass and he came so hard he temporarily passed out.

They did eventually make it to the room. After several more rounds of enthusiastic - and borderline experimental - sex, Steve lay quietly the dark. He had no legal rights to tell them to stop coming, but part of him was sure he had to figure out a way. The first night he’d spent with them was magic, but he was sure it was lightning in a bottle. A one time event that would never be repeated. Then the texts on the app. Then tonight.

For amidst the enthusiastic fucking, there had been conversation. In the entirety of Steve’s life, he’d had emotionally resonant conversations with exactly four alphas: Peggy, Uncle Edgar on one occasion that involved talking about Steve’s father, a high school teacher he had trusted, and Thor. None of them involved his hopes, dreams, aspirations, or even his favorite sexual position. No one ever asked what got him off, meant it, and then immediately did it. No one asked his opinions and when Bucky had that night…

_“You should ask Steve, maybe,” Tony said, as they all ate some of the snacks Peggy had sent up. “He offered earlier.”_

_“Oh, that’s a great idea,” Bucky brightened and something in Steve quickened at the idea of being helpful. “So, my firm has taken this case - helping an omega sue her alpha for the right to start her own business. We’ve decided to pursue it entirely based on a loophole in their bonding contract, and I’m arguing that we could argue an abuse of power and make it a larger civil case. Do you think I could get other omegas to sign up? Our admin says I’m nuts.”_

_Steve’s first instinct was to laugh hysterically. He was sure there were omegas who would - but to be an omega who could even have conversations about an alpha abusing their power was a privilege he could never even dream of. “Well…”_

_He trailed off, and Tony peered at him. “No, Steve, we honestly want to know.”_

_He told himself that all he’d lose was good sex as he spoke. “Bonding contracts on their own are an abuse of power, so I don’t think you’d have to shift the case from that perspective.”_

_“Tell me more,” Bucky said, leaning forward. “Unpack that. What do you mean?”_

_Steve took another deep breath before deciding to go for broke. “I don’t know many omegas who signed them of their own free will, so in my corner of the world, we see them all as abuses of power unless we use them for our advantage and it’s a mutual situation.”_

_“Are you telling me no omega you know wants to be bonded?” Tony clarified._

_“Not under a contract, no,” Steve admitted. “All it does is transfer ownership, and we’re already owned by the state in so many ways. I guess… that may sound dramatic, but the way they do it in France is the one most of my friends pine for.”_

_“What happens in France?” Bucky asked._

_“It’s a bonding covenant, not a contract. Your secondary genders aren’t listed at all unless you’re bringing children into the bond. And it’s legally breakable by either party.”_

_Bucky’s jaw dropped. “Son of a bitch, my assistant missed that, the last part.”_

_It was Steve’s turn to look confused, so Bucky continued. “In all this, we’ve been researching how other countries got rid of contracts or amended them.”_

_“And I’ve been taking a crash course in constitutional law,” Tony said, “because the more Build-A-Buck talks about the case, the more I realize how much our system is fucked.”_

Steve’s brain had blue screened at that for a few beats before he resumed explaining his views, and the conversation lasted for the better part of an hour. Bucky took notes on his phone, Tony made three phone calls, and Steve could not handle how it was all making him feel.

Especially when, as a thank you for being so honest, Tony knotted him from behind and then played with his hair while the knot deflated. Top ten combo for Steve and he knew if he wasn’t careful, he was going to fall in love.

Tony snuffled in his sleep and appeared to be attempting to burrow into Steve’s body somehow. Bucky snorted loudly and rolled completely away, which Steve took to mean that he was getting too warm for the other man to be comfortable pressed up against.

It felt normal.

It felt… human.

Steve let out a deep sigh. Forget falling, he was already in love.

_Yeah, Ma, I know. Setting myself up for failure here, but I can’t help it. Two dates that I can’t even call dates because they paid Pierce for my time, and I’m so gone for these two that I wouldn’t be able to find my way out of them with a map._

Whatever joy they’d created had an expiration date, Steve knew, but he resolved in that moment to appreciate however long it lasted and cherish the memories always.

An omega really couldn't ask for more than that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tune in next week to check back in with Bucky's law firm, Tony's pseudo investigation, and Steve's heart.


	5. Chapter 5

“So we’re all agreed,” Sharon said.

“We are,” Bucky said firmly. “If Bella is okay with this, we’ll sue the Office of Omega Administration on her behalf for a restrictive marriage contract.”

“Is she aware of all the risks?” Carol addressed Sharon, who had been taking point on the client relationship for this one.

“She’s aware he’ll terminate their bond, yes,” Sharon replied. “She has another relative, a widowed omega, who will take her in.”

Bucky breathed in through his nose. He’d known the laws were archaic, but the last two months had been a crash course in just how archaic they really were. He spent most of his time doing inheritance contracts and mutual bonding contracts, and hadn’t handled a divorce case in years. He thought that if a divorce between alpha and omega was amicable, an omega retained the rights they had had before the bond. How shocked he was to find out that he was wrong. Instead, an omega in the State of Massachusetts essentially ceased to exist until they were re-bonded.

He’d wondered why the divorce rate was one of the lowest in the nation, and now he knew.

Fourteen states didn’t let an omega open a checking account without their alpha’s signature.

Nineteen didn’t allow an omega to get a job without a monthly permission slip from their alpha.

Thirty-fucking-four said it was an alpha’s legal right to knot their omega wherever and whenever they wanted.

Thirty. Four.

Winnie and George Barnes were good parents, truly. George was admittedly confused when Bucky was into men as the primary gender, but he didn’t disown him or anything. They taught Bucky and his three sisters to be kind to everyone, that designations weren’t choices and therefore no one should be treated differently. He learned in law school that their worldview was the “separate but equal” one.

College and law school had absolutely changed how he saw the world. He’d met Carol in a study group their first year and she had been his entry into the world of omega rights activism. She’d taken him to marches, encouraged him to sign up for legal aid to help battered omegas get help - what little help they were entitled to - and helped him start their practice once they’d passed the bar. They both concentrated in family law, so Carol found them a constitutional law scholar to help them with their advocacy work.

Which, Bucky admitted, had dwindled.

It had gotten easier and easier as time went on to make omega rights something that just kinda happened in the background of his life, rather than something that took center stage. He told himself it was fine, he was doing his bit, but…

_“Tony baby,” Bucky said one night, about two weeks into his re-education, “did you know that in Nevada, a baby born to an unbonded omega is legally a ward of the state?”_

_Tony’s eyes shot up from the screen he’d been looking at. “You’re fucking with me.”_

_“And that in Kansas, the legal definition of rape is only between two alphas?”_

_“What?”_

Bucky and Tony had stayed up the entire night that night. Tony dug further into the financial records of the latest shell corporation he’d found that was attached to Pierce’s name. Bucky started making a chart of all the laws that were insane and how to sue to change them in each of the 50 states. Two days later, he’d found that about nineteen organizations already had those kinds of charts because even though this was all brand new information to him, it wasn’t to most people.

Barnes, Carter, and Danvers had taken Bella’s case before Bucky started digging. The conversation with Steve that second time they were together had triggered something in him - a curiosity that made him realize his activism was actually passive and it could be more.

Upon consultation with Bella, and a few people from the organizations that Bucky found, they’d decided to bring a class action suit against the State of Massachusetts that bonding contracts were prohibitive to the human rights of omegas if they weren’t mutually dissolvable. Additionally, they’d argue that the clauses within bonding contracts that stipulated employment permissions were inhumane and violated most of the U.S. Constitution.

It had been tried many times over the years, Bucky had learned, and no court would take the case. But a new loophole created by a Supreme Court decision, paired with a shockingly moderate Massachusetts Supreme Court, buoyed their hope it would work this time.

Plus, Bucky was about to deploy an element none of the rest of them had - Tony.

At the same time, Tony would announce that Pepper Potts Rhodes - a bonded omega, yes, but still an _omega_ \- would be taking over as COO of Stark Industries. There was no other company in America with an omega in a corner office, much less the C-Suite.

People were gonna be mad. Furious, even. Tony’s board was probably going to resign in protest. Which was fine - he had about nineteen omegas lined up to take their spots and he hated having a board. Their stock prices were going to plummet, so Tony was going to use it as a time to sell off the weapons division at a bargain, which he wanted to do anyway.

And the best bit was that it would give Bella a fighting chance to open her business. And then a million other Bellas after her to do the same thing.

“Are Tony and Pepper ready?” Carol asked.

Bucky laughed. “Beyond. They’ve been talking about this for years, but Tony says he was too much of a coward to acknowledge the truth that she’s been running ops for years now anyway. His current COO is a blowhard leftover from Howard and we’re pretty sure he’s embezzling funds anyway.”

“Oh, to have enough money to not be fussed by embezzling,” Carol said with a snort. “The photos for the press release look amazing. I love that Tony’s bonding mark is visible and hers isn’t. Makes a statement, I think.”

“He hopes so,” Bucky replied. His phone buzzed. “Speaking of. Are we good to go? Bella’s ready to go to the safe house?”

Sharon nodded. “I already have the fridge stocked with her favorites and all the books she’s been meaning to read but hasn’t gotten around to. She’s very excited to meet with Pepper, as you can imagine.”

“Pepper’s ready to try her hand at angel investing,” Bucky said with a grin. “So we all win here.”

“As long as they take the case,” Carol reminded them all, her voice heavy with caution.

“They will,” Bucky assured her as he checked his phone. “There is no human on the planet the press wants information from more than Tony. They’ll feed on this like sharks on chum and he’ll make sure the court is pressured into taking the case.”

_TextityText: Hubzone_

_Tony: Tonight_

_Tony: We get to see him tonight_

_Tony: I’m walking around the lab singing West Side Story like a chump, but we get a whole weekend with him._

Bucky bit his lip to hold back a grin. “Alright. This is the last weekend any of us are getting off in a good few months, so let’s all enjoy it.”

“We know you will,” Carol said with a waggle of her eyebrows, and Bucky casually flipped her off.

“When are we gonna meet the new fella?” Sharon asked, and Bucky’s eyebrows shot up.

“You wanna meet Steve? He’s -”

“If you’re not on your way to asking that man to bond with you two, you’re idiots,” Sharon said firmly. “Unless you’re lying entirely about how you all feel about each other and he’s playing you like clients, but from everything you’ve said this is real for him, too.”

Bucky felt a blush creep up his cheeks. “He says it is.”

“And you’ve seen him perform, right? And he is different with you guys?”

Bucky nodded. “His friend Val told us it’s real for him, too, when she delivered drinks to the booth last week. He was in the bathroom and she looked right at us and told us to get him out of there because he loved us and he deserved the world.”

“Then that settles it,” Carol said, “and yes, we need to meet Tall, Blonde, and Flexible.”

Bucky laughed, and they all made their way out of the conference room and back to their offices. He texted Tony as he walked.

_Bucky: Two whole days with you two before probably not seeing either of you for a month. I’m so hard at the idea I could cut glass._

_Tony: No commentary on how this has turned me into a teenage drama queen?_

_Bucky: Turned you?_

_Bucky: This is new information?_

_Bucky: I’m so sorry, you must be confused with my other husband. Because my husband Tony Stark has every word to My Fair Lady memorized even though he pretends I don’t watch him mouthing the lyrics with Audrey Hepburn._

_Tony: I hate you_

_Bucky: Yeah, I really felt that hate last night with your cock in my ass_

_Tony: Loathe Fucking. It’s the new thing._

_Bucky: I’ll be home in twenty._

_Bucky: Hey, does it piss you off we have to get a permission slip from Pierce to take Steve with us?_

_Tony: Beyond reason_

_Bucky: Another thing to add to the suit_

_Tony: And another reason to bond and be done with Pierce_

_Bucky: You found the shell corp yet?_

_Tony: It’s not in the Seychelles, that’s as far as I’ve gotten._

_Tony: I’ll fill you in later._

_Bucky: Gaht it_

* * *

“A whole weekend.” Sam grinned at Steve as they cleaned the mirrors in the dressing room. “Man, what a dream.”

“I know, I can’t quite believe it,” Steve admitted. He was afraid to really think about why Pierce was letting him go for this long, but it most likely had something to do with keeping Tony and Bucky happy.

“When are you getting it through your thick ass skull that these dudes are the real deal, pal?”

“We don’t know that,” Steve said. “It feels wonderful and… But no. Besides, what are they going to do, bond with me? I can’t leave this place.”

“Why the hell not?”

Steve was quiet, and Sam stepped closer to him. He lowered his voice. “They will all kill you themselves if they find out you sacrificed something with Barnes and Stark for their o asses, you hear me? And MJ is lethal with those heels, Steve. I wouldn’t push her.”

“I can’t leave them to him,” Steve ground out. “I’d never live with myself.”

Sam looked his friend in the eyes, and Steve knew that this was the last time they’d talk about this. Sam wasn’t into beating dead horses. He’d made his point and now Steve would have to live with the consequences of whatever decision he made. So he blinked slowly, and Sam seemed to take that as ‘no further comment’ and backed away.

“Now, describe, in detail, the food Stark says he’s cooking. I mean, I want sauce temperatures. Let a brother live vicariously!”

“Only you, Sam the Man.” Steve laughed and shook his head. Sam’s ultimate dream was to be a chef and the plan with Riley and Thor was how he was going to get there - but progress was slow and so Sam just lived in hope.

“Listen, you made the mistake of telling me that he went to CIA because he was bored and hosts dinner parties to try out new recipes that he then gives away to Collichhio. Your fault,” Sam said with a grin and went back to cleaning Nebbie’s mirror. “Now, talk to me about this squab situation that’s happening tonight. Details, Rogers!”

* * *

“What if,” Bucky asked slowly, “you told us what you wanted?”

Steve blinked several times. “Like, right now?”

Bucky chuckled, a low growly sound that Steve could feel in his bones. It was the safest he’d ever felt - sandwiched between these two men, with their alpha pheromones drenching the air, telling his hindbrain that he was protected and wanted and chosen. He felt safer with them than he had with his mother, which was a fucking mind trip.

“Now, for Christmas, in life. Whatever you want, Stevie,” Bucky replied as he lazily scratched his fingers over Steve’s stomach.

For the first time in his life, Steve wondered what he’d look like with that stomach distended with a pup. With Bucky and Tony’s hands covering it, rubbing lotion on it…

_Alphas can’t feel love._

Sarah’s voice was adamant in his head and he found himself immediately shutting her down.

_No, Ma, the alphas you chose couldn’t. These alphas can. Look at them. They love. You were wrong._

“I want you,” he rasped, not fully trusting his voice.

“Well, you have us,” Tony replied from his other side. “Anything more specific?”

It was late Saturday afternoon and they’d already burned enough calories to make an Olympic weightlifter jealous. Steve’s heat was coming up, and he was always particularly randy in the weeks leading to the Quarterly Reminder His Body Was Made for Procreating - which was one of the reasons they'd picked this weekend. Riding out a heat with an unbonded omega required legal permission from the omega’s guardian and so they decided on the next best thing - when Steve was fully conscious, completely able to consent, and horny as all living fuck.

When Bucky posed the question, the trio were in the king sized bed in the loft of Tony and Bucky’s cabin nestled high in the New Hampshire mountains. The windows faced west and had a view of a valley that took Steve’s breath away. He ached to paint, to sketch, to capture the view somewhere. He hadn’t been outside of Boston in fifteen years. Bucky was lying curled into Steve’s left side, while Tony was on the right. He had a tablet balanced on his knees and was typing fast and muttering quietly to himself while Bucky and Steve dozed on and off.

Even without the incredible sex - he’d come six times that day - this moment would be the best one of his life.

And now they wanted to know what else he could possibly want?

“In terms of sex?”

“In terms of whatever you want,” Bucky replied, “but we can start there.”

Sex was easy. A good place to start. Before he got stupid and said I want you to bond with me, and forgot the rest of his responsibilities.

“Bucky eating me out while I blow Tony,” Steve replied and started ticking things off on his fingers. “A knot in my mouth and my ass while someone plays with my nipples, getting eaten out and blown at the same time.”

“These are a few of my favorite things,” Tony sing-songed, and Steve laughed.

“You asked.”

“We did,” Bucky affirmed, “but we’ve already done those. What else?”

“Blindfolds,” Steve said quietly. “I like not knowing what’s happening when I trust who I’m with.”

There was a silence in the room, and Steve wondered if he’d gone too far. He did that sometimes - brought other partners into the room, brought other experiences, reminded them of what was actually happening despite this fantasy they’d spun for themselves.

“What else do you like when you’re with someone you trust?” Tony discarded the tablet and stradled Steve. It was sexual for sure - Tony positioned himself so that Steve’s cock would harden up into his ass crack - but more than anything it was intimate. Tony peered into Steve’s eyes and continued. “If you didn’t have your job, and we were all bonded, what would you want from us?”

Trust Tony Stark to call a spade a spade.

“Tied up, spanked a little,” Steve said. “I like wearing lace, I like being sucked off through clothing. I like getting rubbed down - like massages. Someone ate off my abs once and that was nice.”

“That was _nice_ ,” Tony repeated. “They were doing it wrong if it was only nice.”

“Or I just didn’t like them very much,” Steve replied, and he felt Bucky and Tony freeze.

_Fuck it. If I don’t tell them now…_

“I know omegas aren’t allowed to say this first, but I think I love you two. So anything you want to do to me, with me, it’ll be wonderful because it’ll be you,” Steve said quickly. He felt his whole face light on fire and closed his eyes tight as he said the words.

“Baby, look at me.” Tony’s voice was soft, and Steve cracked open his eyes. To his shock, Tony’s eyes were wet with tears. “Omegas can say whatever they want, and more importantly, you can say whatever you want, whenever you want. Most importantly? I love you, too.”

“Me dos,” Bucky muttered.

“Counselor Barnes is saving his words for the court, I see,” Tony sassed.

“Counselor Barnes is so hard from this display of affection that I want to knot this beautiful motherfucker so hard I will break him, but that feels rude with all the schmoop happening to my right,” Bucky muttered, still tucked into Steve’s side.

But now that Bucky mentioned it, there was something poking into Steve’s hip…

Steve turned his head and kissed Bucky. As Bucky yielded his mouth open and simply kissed him, Steve realized two things at the exact same time.

One, he was completely in control of what happened in this bed.

Two, what happened outside this bed they wanted his opinion on as well.

Two months they’d been seeing each other and that hadn’t fully sunk in until this moment.

He’d known he loved them before - that’s what the feeling pressing on his chest whenever he was with them was, he was sure of it - but something in the arrangement of souls in that room in that moment cemented everything.

And then, Bucky spoke. Barely above a whisper, and obviously intended just for Steve, even if Tony could hear.

“Stevie, I’ve loved you for at least 95% of the time we’ve known you. You fit. You smell right, you taste right, you make us relax, you make us happy, and we only haven’t said anything in case it felt like pressure. I love you, the mook on your stomach loves you, we love you. Now what, in this moment, do you want us to do?”

“Show me,” Steve whispered, and Bucky grinned.

“Anthony, our omega has requested to be shown how much we love him,” Bucky said, his voice grand and boisterous.

“Well then, James,” Tony grinned, “I believe we shall have to acquiesce to that request.”

For the next while, time moved like taffy. Steve was caught in sensations he couldn’t have put words on if he tried. The pair moved slowly, taking their time as they took Steve apart with their hands and tongues.

Steve was loved, adored, cared for.

Even better? Steve was worshipped.

Surely he’d wake up from this dream in a moment, but he’d enjoy it while it lasted.

* * *

* * *

Bucky licked his tongue up the vein on the underside of Steve’s cock. God, Bucky loved male bodies. He loved the way the skin moved over muscles, the way a cock felt on his tongue. He loved letting his tongue explore an omega’s ass, lapping up their specific scents and tastes. He loved the same for an alpha. There was actually no part of sex with primary male bodies that Bucky didn’t like.

But the best part of sex with Steve wasn’t his body - although, Bucky gave every inch of Steve Rogers’ physicality a big A+. No, the best part of sex with Steve was his reactions.

The first few times they had been together, Bucky had a feeling there were still performance elements. Steve’s answers were too rehearsed and the contrast when they saw raw emotion was too great for Bucky not to assume that the professionalism was so ingrained that Steve couldn’t turn it off.

Slowly, they’d gotten more of the real Steve. Professional Steve might like having his cock treated like a lollipop, but Human Steve fucking loved it. He moaned. He squirmed. He bucked up into Bucky's mouth, as though trying to get Bucky to swallow him.

Which Bucky only did after licking pre-cum out of Steve’s slit enough times that Steve was vibrating and begging. Only then would Bucky cup Steve’s balls and slide his cock down his throat. He then swallowed with great gusto because another thing Human Steve loved was kissing someone who tasted a bit like himself.

Tony hated that - he hated tasting himself on Bucky, so this discovery of a Steve kink was delightful.

Steve was delightful.

God, Bucky was gone on this man.

This man who bore the world on his shoulders and only asked to be shown how loved he was. My pleasure, handsome, Bucky thought as he licked Steve again.

“Bucky,” Steve moaned, and the sound went straight to Bucky’s already burgeoning erection.

“Is he close?” Tony asked, coming back into the room with a few cans of Red Bull and a bag of Doritos. It had been decided that this particular session would end with knotting and Tony said he was peckish and horny, so he went to get supplies.

“Very,” Bucky replied. “I think we can get the timing right if you’re a pump or two away.”

Steve moaned something that sounded like words.

“What was that, Stevalicious?” Tony asked as he climbed back into bed and kissed his way around Steve’s torso.

“Hurry the living fuck up.”

“Can you get on your knees for me, then, baby?” Tony asked and Steve scrambled to comply. Soon, Bucky was positioned under Steve, still licking and nibbling, while Tony jerked himself a few times and then reported that he was ready.

Bucky felt Tony slam into Steve - he felt the vibrations and the friction - but he could also smell him. Tony always gave off this very specific odor when he was about to knot - a bit like leather, but really well conditioned leather. Like someone had taken a baseball glove and worked fifteen years’ worth of Murphy’s Oil into it. Tony could never smell it and routinely told Bucky he was crazy throughout their whole relationship.

And then Steve had smelled it, too.

“I’m gonna hook him soon, Buckybaby,” Tony grunted. “Get ready.”

Bucky arranged himself so that he was lying on his back. He gripped Steve’s hips so that when Tony thrusted for the last time and hooked his knot inside Steve, Bucky could use the motion to swallow Steve whole.

“One, two -” Tony started, and Bucky found himself with a mouthful of cock and fists full of squirming omega.

As soon as Bucky swallowed, they worked to get Tony and Steve onto their side while Bucky headed for the bathroom to grab washcloths. He cleaned them all up and then fed his loves some snacks.

“So did it work?” Bucky said a few minutes later. “Did we show you?”

“For now,” Steve replied and Bucky knew he probably had a smirk on his face. “I’m not totally sure I believe it. So maybe another showing later.”

“Greedy,” Tony said.

“For you two? Yes,” Steve affirmed, and Bucky felt his heart go boom.

He thought of the contracts sitting on his hard drive, the drafts of bonding arrangements he’d drawn up. He hated every one and hadn’t even bothered showing them to Tony. Bucky didn’t want Pierce’s signature on anything involving their lives and knew Tony wouldn’t either. Plus, there was still hinky shit about how Pierce made money where all the money from the club was going. As terrible as it all was, they couldn’t upset the apple cart yet.

For now, he’d rest in these moments, and dream of the day where they were permanent happenings instead of fleeting escapes.

* * *

_Bzzzzz Bzzzz Bzzzzz_

“Who’s phone?” Tony mumbled.

“Three buzzes, that’s Steve’s text,” Bucky said back.

Steve rolled out of bed and grabbed his phone from the dresser where it had been charging. The room was dark and he was still half asleep, so he was barely coherent when he read the words on his screen.

_TexityText: Val_

_Val: MJ’s preg_

_Val: Rumlow found the test_

_Val: She just got loaded into a van_

_Val: It’s 3am, Steve. What OB is open at 3am._

Steve blinked at the phone and then let out a whine of distress. He heard Bucky and Tony rustle the sheets behind him - his whine must have triggered something in their instincts.

“Baby, what’s on the phone?” Bucky said.

“Pierce is gonna kill MJ.”

“Like, she’s in trouble gonna kill her, or…” Tony trailed off.

“We can’t get pregnant,” Steve said as he began throwing his randomly discarded clothes into his backpack. He had to get back to Boston. “It’s against our contract. MJ evidently is - she has this one client who won’t let her use condoms and… anyway, we’re just supposed to be fired, but everyone who gets pregnant just disappears and we never hear from them again, and… I know he has them killed. I just know it. I have to get back.”

“We’ll all go now,” Tony said firmly, “but you gotta breathe.”

“Fuck breathing,” Steve said, “MJ is going to die.”

That’s when he heard Bucky’s voice talking to someone on the phone. “Yeah, George. Omera’s in Brookline. There was a van - can you - great. Text me?” He hung up and looked at the other two men. “Sometimes living in a surveillance state has its perks. My buddy at L&I is gonna track the van. The club ain’t licensed to take omegas off premises between 10pm and 6am.”

“And then what?” Steve said, his voice nearly a growl. He had to get back to the club. He had to make sure the rest of them were okay, he had to -

“Hey,” Tony rested his hand on Steve’s shoulder. “We’ll get you back to your cubs. Bucky’s never met a speed limit he didn’t want to break.”

“Pot, kettle,” Bucky said.

“They’re not my cubs,” Steve said.

“They are, and that’s good,” Tony replied. “They need a pack leader and your alpha is a shit stain. Of course they’re your cubs, Steve, and we’ll get you home to them. I’ll send staff up to clean out the fridge and everything. Let’s get going.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> About that last scene: remember that Steve isn't actually omniscient.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Wednesday! I've rearranged the posting schedule to accommodate the upcoming holidays. Thanks to jeh for the cheer, ferret for the beta, and ko for the graphics.

“It’s been three months, George,” Bucky growled into the phone.

“I know,” the man on the other end said. “Trust me, Barnes, we’re working on it. But when he cut out her chip, we lost a key piece of information.”

“You’re not saying something,” Bucky said. “I can hear your hesitation, George.”

There was a pause. “How much do you know about trafficking rings?”

“Enough,” Bucky said. “More in the last five months.”

“Your boy Pierce is a kingpin in one, we’re sure of it. We just can’t crack him.”

Bucky’s blood ran cold. What was worse - that MJ was dead or sold somewhere? And how many other omegas had this happened to? We have got to get Stevie out.

“I have a feeling,” George continued, “we’ll get him on a technicality. Like Capone with tax evasion or something. Just have your phones with you whenever you’re around him. As an officer of the court and Tony being… well, Tony, we can parlay anything you find into action as long as there are receipts.”

“But we should give up hope for MJ,” Bucky said.

“My wife would tell you to never give up hope ever, that if we give up hope in this line of work we may as well quit,” George said with an affectionate chuckle. “But I’d redirect my hope, yeah. She’s not somewhere we can get to her quickly.”

“Thanks, George,” Bucky said.

“Get me art, James,” the other man said. “Let’s burn this motherfucker to the ground.”

When Bucky hung up the phone, he loosened his tie and gazed at the photo on his desk. They’d taken it two weeks ago when Tony gritted his teeth and got a permission slip signed from Pierce to take Steve to Coney Island for the day and then to spend the night with them. They’d stuffed themselves full of terrible food, made out a bit under the pier like teenagers, and taken about six million selfies. They’d been so exhausted when they got back to Bucky and Tony’s, that they fell asleep on the couch in a tangle of limbs. Steve had woken them both up at around 2am and shepherded them into bed, where the cuddle pile resumed. It was the first time they’d been around each other for an entire night where they didn’t have sex.

Bucky was so in love with Steve that he thought he’d explode from the yearning. He mentally apologized to everyone he’d ever made fun of for liking Jane Austen - he got it now. Oh fuck a duck, did he get it.

“Barnesy.”

He looked up to see Sharon leaning against the doorframe.

“I know you trust George,” she started, and he raised an eyebrow, “but can I try finding her?”

“Why?”

She pursed her lips. “I have connections I’ve not disclosed to you or Carol. If they work out and we find MJ, I’ll tell you everything, okay?”

Bucky furrowed his brow and opened his mouth to speak when she held up a hand. “I won’t interfere, and I know this sounds shady as all living fuck, but give me a week and see what I turn up?”

“I don’t see any reason to stop you, but -”

“Thanks, Buck,” Sharon said and abruptly left his office.

“Well that wasn’t fucking weird or anything,” Bucky said to the emptiness. He sighed deeply, rubbed his hands over his tired eyes, and then grabbed a file. Time to get back to work.

* * *

“PEP!” Tony bellowed from his office. “I NEED THE -”

“Sanderson Report from 2012?”

“How do you just appear? Are you magic?” Tony grabbed the file from Pepper’s outstretched hands as she crossed from her office into his.

“To put up with you? Yes, I believe I am,” Pepper replied primly, and Tony grinned. “And are you done with the zoning report for Back Bay? I’m finishing the proposal for Tom.”

“Under,” Tony gestured to a pile of files balancing precariously on a side table. He knew she was rolling her eyes at his organizational "system."

It had been six months since he’d named Pep as CEO and the stocks still hadn’t settled. He didn’t think they would for another year or so, and he and Pepper were in the middle of a long debate over whether he should announce a bond with Steve before the stocks settled or after. Pepper routinely reminded him that he and Bucky had to properly ask Steve first, but Tony was trying to strategize for every eventuality. This wasn’t the first night the two of them were in the office well past 10pm, surrounded by file folders and takeout containers, attempting to set a new strategic plan while maintaining as much status quo as they could.

When Bucky had kicked off the Re-Education of Tony and Bucky earlier in the year, Tony had assumed it would be another of Bucky’s nerdy deep dives into something. He’d done it with botany, astronomy, and the history of cheese, so Tony wasn’t particularly prepared for his entire life to be upended. And yet, here he was - without a truly official role in his own company as he transitioned everything to Pepper. They were calling him "President" on the stationary, but no one knew what that really meant. Pepper had assembled a truly, terrifyingly, wonderful team of people underneath her as they split Stark Industries into divisions that could do business as SI, but be called other things. SI the conglomerate was moving to Stark Tech, Stark Energy, Stark Resources, and Stark Consultants - each with the best person at the head of it, regardless of secondary gender. The Maria Stark Foundation was getting folded into a larger philanthropic thing that Pepper had found a professional fundraiser named Heather Salisbury to head up, and everything was moving so fast, Tony’s head was spinning.

“Why do you need Sanderson?” Pepper’s voice held a question Tony wasn’t sure he was ready to answer.

“I’m thinking, Pep,” he replied. “Considering. Mulling. Ruminating.”

“With a personalized thesaurus, I see,” Pepper responded. She picked up a pile of papers from the couch and moved them to the floor before settling herself in their place. She grabbed a container with chopsticks sticking out of it and sniffed. “Lo mein from tonight?”

“Yeah,” Tony replied. “Adi ordered it around 8, so it probably won’t kill you.”

She shoved some noodles into her mouth. “You gonna run?”

“I’m an alpha bonded to another alpha who wants to add an omega to our bond,” Tony replied. “I don’t scream ‘family values candidate’ which is all the machine here will allow the people to elect.”

“Tony, the number of skeevy old men you know is legion,” Pepper replied with an eye roll. “One of them has to want you in office more than another guy. Find that slimeball and have him grease the wheels.”

“Do you remember when we were in school and they taught us about democracy?”

“I remember that fiction fondly,” Pepper said, “and I aspire to actually live in one someday. For now, Rhodey and I want kids and I can’t have them because I don’t get pregnancy leave. I can’t get that law changed until we get a better Court, and I can’t get a better Court until we get better judges, and you see my point here. Dust off your law degree you never use _and run_.”

“Mayor of Boston doesn’t actually make laws,” Tony said.

“But the Attorney General of Massachusetts helps enforce them the way they are written, and not the way we use them. You know there are more liberal loopholes than get exploited,” Pepper continued, “so exploit them! For good!”

Tony opened his mouth to respond, but she kept going. “You have time. Whether you want to admit it or not, you and Bucky just blew up the world. It’s only going to get cleaner after this if clean people rebuild it. Fucking run, you coward.”

“I’ll talk to them,” Tony held up his hands in surrender.

“Them,” she said, as a grin spread across her face. “You gonna show him the contract?”

“Tonight,” Tony affirmed. “We’re going to lay out the whole plan tomorrow night.”

She nearly catapulted off the couch and wrapped Tony in a hug.

“Yeah, yeah.” He patted her head and brushed her off slightly. Tony was never quite sure what to do when Pepper showed genuine emotion instead of the playful antagonism they normally shared. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Maybe I’m just getting broody in my old age.”

“You are 38,” Pepper replied. She kissed his forehead and lowered her voice. “You get the whole package, Tony. Whatever it is, you deserve it.”

He allowed himself a small smile. “Alright, Potts. Back to work.”

* * *

“What is even HAPPENING here?” Tony yelled above the din. “We were having a great night! Why is there yelling?”

It had been a great night. They’d decided to get dinner in the club tonight - Steve had wanted to watch Val try out a new routine, and keep an eye on someone circling Nebula a little too closely - and then made their way to their favorite room at Peggy’s. They’d fucked - each alpha had their chance to knot Steve - and chatted, took a shower together and fucked in there, too. Everything had been gentle and hot, much like most of their nights.

And then Bucky said something about the case, and Steve seemed to snap. He started with snide comments about toxic alpha behavior and when Bucky tried to counter those, it somehow escalated quickly. Finally, after Steve to get whatever it was out of his system.

“You’re both just… listen, I’m sorry,” Steve said and the change in him was shocking. Bucky watched their brash, bold, wonder of an omega crumple in on himself as though putting himself in his own place. “I’m so sorry, I shouldn’t have… you have every right to… you never asked for my opinion, you were talking amongst yourselves and -”

“Sweetheart, we always want your opinion,” Tony said and took a step towards Steve. Steve responded by backing towards the wall, and Bucky saw Tony freeze.

“I’m so sorry,” he muttered and then did something he had never done. He sank to his knees, turned around, and presented for them.

Bucky felt nauseous.

Omegas only did that when they expected to be punished. In all of Bucky’s life, he’d never heard of an omega presenting to an alpha outside of their heat of their own accord.

“Stop it,” Bucky roared. He pushed Steve’s hips back towards the floor. Steve fought him, but Bucky knew he got his point across when Steve lay face down instead. “For the love of god, sit up, please do not… Steve, look at me. We are not… Stevie, baby, look at me.”

When Steve didn’t, Bucky lay down on the floor in front of Steve. He pulled Steve’s face slightly to force eye contact and growled out. “We have been together, the three of us, in some way, on a regular basis and breaking a whole bunch of Pierce’s rules evidently, for about five months, true or false.”

“True,” Steve whispered. He raised his face, though, and rearranged his body so that he was kneeling. Still not what Bucky wanted, but closer.

“You told us a few weeks ago that we’re the first alphas you’ve ever trusted besides Peggy, true or false?”

“True.”

“Then why,” Bucky asked quietly, as he leaned his forehead into Steve’s, “are you squealing at us like we’re about to punish you?”

“Because you have every right to,” Steve said, using that tone again that made Bucky’s skin crawl.

“No,” Tony said from behind Steve, “we don’t.”

Steve spun on his heel. “What are you talking about? Of course you do, you’re an alpha and I’m an omega and -”

“Are we bonded?” Tony interrupted.

“No,” Steve said.

“Then we don’t, legally, have any right -”

“Oh, fuck legally,” Steve exploded once again. “You think that any piece of my life actually is governed truly by the letter of the law? You think that legally Pierce is allowed to take all of my wages? Or use those wages to play for plastic surgery on other omegas without either of our consent? What about the scent blockers I wear - you think those are legal? Or how about the times we’re sent on trips with friends of Pierce’s? You think that’s legal? Legal means jackshit in the day to day of our lives, so you’ll forgive me for not hanging my hat on legality.”

He stalked over to his clothes and started to gather them once again. “In about five minutes, you’re going to realize what Pierce has always known, which is that I’m not easily broken in. If you could give me a few hours to make sure everything is set for tomorrow night before you let him know you’re terminating your membership or preference with me, that would be much appreciated.”

Bucky didn’t even have to look at his husband to know what Tony was thinking. Their bonded brains did work as one sometimes, and they both started emitting a scent that they knew would get Steve’s attention. It said they needed him, and it was a dirty trick since most omegas were powerless against it, but goddamnit, Bucky had no idea what was happening.

“Stevie, we’re not terminating anything,” Bucky replied. “Except maybe our sanity because we have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Bucky could see the cords in Steve’s neck bulging like he was fighting against the scent and Bucky hated himself for what he was doing.

“Steve,” Tony said softly, “if you could do me a favor and reach in the front part of my overnight bag? There’s a folder there I think might help explain where we’re coming from and why we’re a little confused.”

“Will you turn the scent off?” Steve ground out.

“Will you give us a fucking chance to respond?” Bucky ground out in response.

Steve nodded, and the alphas calmed themselves. Steve walked over to the couch and followed Tony’s instructions. He started flipping through the pages and confusion clouded his face. “You cannot be serious.”

It was a statement and not a question.

“The first set of papers,” Tony said and Bucky could feel him keeping his voice calm, “is a bonding contract that would get you out of the ownership arrangement with Pierce, which our lawyer found so draconian that he nearly passed out. The second set of papers is the contract the three of us would really sign once you were free of him, and the third set is the evidence we’re building to try to buy the club from Pierce in case the first two options aren’t to your liking.”

“Why do you need evidence?”

“Let’s sit down,” Tony said and they all did. “Here’s where you don’t know things about the alpha world as much, or at least the business one. You’re right that what he does here is skirting the law at best and flat out illegal at the worst, but nothing that we can prove so far can supersede your uncle’s will leaving Omera to him.”

“By the way,” Bucky interjected, “this has been driving us nuts. It’s it ‘Omera’ with no possessive or ‘Omera’s’ with one? We keep seeing it both ways.”

“It’s actually Oishin,” Steve said, “so I don’t care what he calls it. But why does he have to be a criminal to… Oh god, they can’t invalidate her will unless he’s in jail, can they?”

“Edgar was of sound mind when he died,” Tony said, “and so we’re a bit fucked there.”

“Babe,” Bucky interjected, “I think you have to start at the beginning. We’re bringing Stevie in on page 45 here.”

“I love that, by the way,” Steve said, “when you call me Stevie.”

Bucky felt his cheeks warm and his heart clench. “Then I’ll do it forever.”

The room stilled, and Steve blinked a few times. “You’re fucking serious.”

Again with a statement and not a question.

“There are ways this is done,” Tony replied, “and we’re skipping a few hundred steps right now, but yes, we’re serious. We’d like to open our bond for you to join us permanently.”

Steve was quiet for a few moments and Bucky wondered if he was blinking back tears. He collapsed onto the couch and placed the papers on the coffee table. He ran his hands through his hair and then looked at them with wide eyes. “I dreamed and I wondered, but…” He took a deep breath and looked at each of them in turn. “I’ve been Cinderella to an ugly stepfamily for a long fucking time, and I am tired. I’d go with you right now if it was just me, without a moment of hesitation, because I have no idea how to be bonded, but I love you and I figure we’ll figure it out.”

“I know you well enough to know there’s a ‘but’ there,” Bucky replied and was paid back with a deep blush on Steve’s cheeks.

“But I can’t leave everyone,” Steve said, his voice wet with unshed tears.

“We’d never ask you to,” Tony explained and then pointed to a paragraph at the bottom of the bonding contract. “This says the club would be yours, outright. We’d sign it over to you and you can run it however you want. Turn it into a bowling alley for all we care, but your mother’s legacy is yours.”

The scent that Steve emitted at that moment was so strong that it nearly knocked Bucky off his feet. He moved quickly to kneel before the omega. He grasped Steve’s hands in his and whispered, “Did we just smell your joy scent?”

Steve nodded. “It’s grass. I know it’s weird, but -”

“Not weird,” Bucky rushed to correct.

“I’ve never had a yard,” Steve whispered.

“And joy means freedom for you, doesn’t it?” Tony murmured, and Bucky felt Steve shift a little.

“If I ever get to have pups - real pups, not everyone at the club - I want them to know what grass feels like beneath their bare feet. I want them to roll around in mud and build forts in the woods. They teach us that our joy scent is often the thing we think we’ll never get,” Steve explained, “the thing that we crave so intensely that we’re afraid to put it into words.”

“Only 8% of American omegas report ever knowing,” Bucky said.

“Pierce makes us all get the scent range test every year,” Steve replied. “They inject us with shit that makes the glands emit the appropriate scents. He wanted a catalogue so he could scent match us with clients.”

“Motherfuckingsonofabitch.” Tony let out a growl that made Bucky smile, but Tony wasn’t the focus right now.

“Stevie,” Bucky said tenderly, “have you smelled that without the injections?”

Steve shook his head and gathered Bucky’s hands to his lips. He kissed them tenderly for a few moments before Bucky crawled up Steve’s body and settled in his lap. He grasped Steve’s face in his hands and leaned their foreheads together.

“I hereby solemnly swear that I will spend the rest of my goddamn life making sure you smell like grass as much as possible,” Bucky whispered.

“I’d like that very much,” Steve whispered back, and Bucky leaned down to gently bite Steve’s bonding gland. The scent got stronger, and Bucky felt Tony join them on the couch. Hands and mouths and breaths all mixed together as the trio made silent promises to each other. Time slowed, and Bucky could not have said how long they spent simply holding each other.

“Hey handsome,” Tony murmured while they were catching their breath at one point, “that was a bit of a reaction back there.”

Steve chuckled. “Yeah, sorry. I haven’t slept in a few days.”

“What is -”

Steve silenced Tony with a kiss. “It’s all garbage that you’ve heard a million times and that every piece of paper you showed me will fix at some point. Don’t worry about it.”

“Well, you see, Mr. Rogers,” Tony replied as he shifted to straddle Steve, and Bucky could make out the smile on his face even in the lowlight of the room, “love means I worry a lot and I give a good damn about why you’re not sleeping. Will you-”

Again with the kiss, and Bucky appreciated how quickly Steve had learned that was the only way to shut Tony up quickly. “No. I won’t. I’m still owned by Pierce. Just love me while I’m here.”

“We love you all the time,” Bucky replied and shoved Tony off of Steve’s torso. “Our boy said he needed sleep, old man.”

“I got Pep saying I’m old, now I’m getting harassed by my husband,” Tony huffed. “I am not even forty.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Bucky said, “good thing I like having a sugar daddy.”

“I’m sure there’s a really great response somewhere in the recesses of my brain,” Tony replied as he settled into Steve’s side, “but I’m sleepy.”

“Then sleep, Tony,” Steve said, his voice rumbly and soft. Bucky felt himself drift off and only woke to the sound of his phone ringing several hours later.

“That’s Sharon’s ringtone,” Bucky said, “and I’m technically late for work.”

Steve whined slightly but released Bucky. “‘Lo?”

“Buck, get your ass in here now,” Sharon growled through the phone. She’d laced alpha into her voice and she only did that when she wasn’t interested in his opinion. “And bring Tony and Steve if you can.”

“What’s up, Carter?”

“They found MJ.”

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tune in next time to catch up with MJ and discover just how far Pierce will go to maintain his tenuous empire.


	7. Chapter 7

“I told you everything I know,” MJ said, her jaw set. “We’ve been over this four times already, and you have enough notes to publish a book!”

“We know, Michelle -”

“MJ,” Tony interrupted the detective. “She goes by MJ and she’s told you at least three times, so could you do her the courtesy of remembering that?”

The room was heavy with tension, and Steve found it difficult to breathe. They were all gathered in a private hospital suite- himself, Bucky, Tony, Sharon, MJ, and three detectives. He and MJ were the only omegas, and that was only adding to his anxiety. His alphas, he trusted. They told him to trust Sharon, so she was okay. But these other three yokels?

He knew better than to speak, but he hoped his growl into Bucky’s side would spur Bucky to action.

“Detective Rodriguez,” Bucky said. Steve exhaled. “Is the issue that we need a cohesive statement?”

“Yes,” the detective affirmed. “MJ, I need a clean audio file, all in your voice, of your story so that I can send it directly to the judge that will give me the warrant. Everything you said already is valuable, and will be used in court so you don’t have to testify - “

“Oh, I fucking want to testify,” MJ spat, and Steve swore he saw one of the stoic detectives smile.

“Be that as it may,” Rodriguez said smoothly, “sometimes the court doesn’t allow omega testimony if they fear for the safety of the omega. In this case, I’m not sure a judge will let anyone in the room but themselves and the jury if there is one. With the severity of these crimes against omegas, sometimes the judge supersedes a jury. Alexander Pierce has a lot of powerful friends, and we want them all to go down with him.”

“We all do,” Tony was quick to affirm. It took a minute for Steve to realize what was happening, but then his eyes filled with tears.

Tony was claiming MJ as an omega in his care.

Not one he owned or bonded with, but one he was responsible for. This was an ancient arrangement, and one that lit Steve’s hindbrain on fire. Before there were legal classifications of alpha/omega relationships, and back before the government needed the taxes on owned omegas, there was another classification.

It was old pack magic - the idea that a pack alpha could find an omega who needed shelter, either permanently or temporarily, and offer that to them. It was from a time before ownership began at birth, back when omegas had a modicum of control over their lives until they were taken as a mate. Val was frequently reminding all of them at the club that the current system was political and not natural, but Steve had never seen an alpha use that power.

Without missing a beat, Tony used it for MJ.

And Steve knew in his bones that Tony would do it for everyone at the club.

His skin was the only thing keeping him from going everywhere at once, and he nearly collapsed with the weight of the love he felt both from Tony and for Tony.

He was knocked out of his moment by a whimper. He looked in MJ’s direction, and saw fear in her eyes. Steve was about to move to her when something else happened.

Tony knelt in front of MJ.

Steve felt the three detectives take a breath and knew they couldn’t believe their eyes. An alpha - especially one as powerful as Tony Stark - kneeling in front of an omega who spread her legs for a living.

“Goddamnit, Stark,” Bucky muttered next to Steve, his voice full of love. Steve grinned and leaned back a bit into Bucky.

“MJ,” Tony said, his voice low but completely free of commanding growl. “I know that I am not your alpha, and I know that you probably have no good experience with alphas, and I’m sorry for that. There are some of us, though, who are doing our best and I promise I am one of them, and so is my husband. We’ve been working with authorities for a few months now, not only to find you, but to get Pierce stripped of everything and put behind bars. We’re so close, MJ, so close. Your testimony is going to be so powerful, and I think may be the thing that gets us over the finish line.”

“Can everyone leave but the people I know?” MJ said.

“No, sweetheart, I’m sorry,” Tony continued. “We need the officers here to testify that none of us coerced you into speaking, that none of us were scenting the room, and that no one tried to punish you based on what you said.”

“Meej,” Steve said softly, “I trust him with my life.”

“Well, I figured as much since you’ve been mooning over him and Beardy over there since the first night,” MJ retorted.

“Beardy? I like it,” Bucky replied and stroked his beard. “I put a lot of work into this.”

“You put almost no effort in and pay Mario a lot of money to keep you groomed,” Tony interjected and Steve felt the whole room ease a bit. Of all the things that Tony and Bucky were gifted at, one of the top was making everyone around them feel comfortable. He’d never been more grateful for it than in this moment.

“MJ,” Sharon said from her place leaning against the wall, “just take it from the top. Let Tony get off his knees, he’s pretty old.”

“Thanks, Carter,” Tony said. “The love flows through my veins like honey.”

“I think you’ll find that’s cholesterol,” she replied. “I’ve seen your DoorDash orders.”

“Honestly, honey, the amount of respect your partners give me is criminal,” Tony said, and Steve took note that he hadn’t moved from his knees. He wouldn’t, Steve knew, until MJ let him know she felt safe.

“Okay.” MJ took a deep breath and leaned her forehead to touch Tony’s. “Thank you.”

He responded by getting up and kissing the crown of her head before he settled back down on the sofa next to Steve and Bucky.

“It was a pretty ordinary night,” MJ started. “Granger was there, and he’s always terrible, but he’s a terrible I can handle, so I wasn’t nervous.”

“Can you use full names, MJ?” Rodriguez interrupted. “I’m sorry, but -”

“No, makes sense,” she smiled wanly and began again. “It was a pretty ordinary night. Harold Granger, CEO of Granger Enterprises, was there. He is a regular client and makes most of the omegas on our staff uncomfortable. I am, or was, his favorite, so I’ve gotten used to handling him. I wasn’t nervous, but I didn’t like that he was there on a night that Steve wasn’t. Steve Rogers is our head omega and acts as the main liaison between Alexander Pierce, who owns Omera’s, and us. That is not normal omega behavior, I know, and most workers at clubs I know are left to fend for themselves, but Steve has probably never been a normal omega a day in his life, and I mean that in the best way.”

She paused to look at Steve. He gave her a thumbs up and she continued.

“The one complication was that I’d found out I was pregnant earlier that day, and so I knew I was going to smell a little different. I was nervous that Granger wouldn’t like it, but I didn’t say anything because the rest of the staff was enough on edge as it was. Pierce had been putting lots and lots of pressure on us to make more and more money, and the total he’d asked for that night was 40k. None of us knew if that was possible - the only nights we’d cleared that recently were nights that those two, sorry, that Bucky and Tony had showed up, but Steve was with them on a vacation night, so, anyway. I’m rambling. I was nervous.”

She took a sip of water.

“Granger had arranged a long time ago that I would meet him directly in a private room. This is against club protocol and I think against the law -” Steve saw all three detectives nod “- but good old Granger was a pal of Pierce’s, so he got special treatment.”

She looked down at the packet of papers on the desk next to her recliner, which Steve knew were the notes already taken on her case, and some scribbles she’d made on a legal pad herself when they’d asked her to testify cohesively. Knowing MJ, she had a detailed outline already.

“He made exceptions for other people, too. Nathan Law, Eammon Harrison, Rory Carrol, and Roger Pollen all had exceptions and favorite omegas. We were always to be dressed in their choices and ready in the rooms when they arrived. Those rooms have no cameras, unlike the booths that everyone else is required to use while on club premises.”

She’d just boldly named four of the most powerful men in the United States. Nathan Law was a fourth generation first born alpha to first born alphas and treated most creatures like pawns in a game. No one was actually sure what he did for a living, but everyone seemed to know it was nothing legal. Eammon Harrison was the 87-year-old Senior Senator from Maryland who was largely responsible for the increased restrictions on omega freedom that had been passed in the previous 50 years. Rory Carrol had a reputation for loving underage omegas and supplying them to others with similar tastes, and Roger Pollen was the son of the President.

“When you’re in those rooms, anything can happen, and usually does. I know that rape is not a word that applies to omegas, but trust me when I say we all know the difference between rape and sex. We can still consent to sex within this job, I have clients I enjoy a lot, and clients I enjoy less, but I still consent. I would never, not with four guns to my head, consent to Granger unless I was ordered to. And I never consented to the others he always brought with him,” she spat. She was picking up steam now, and Steve got a glimpse of the lawyer he always thought she would have been had she been born with the right secondary gender.

“That night, there were six other men there, and I can’t remember any of their names, I’m sorry. At one point, one of them realized I was pregnant, and Granger immediately called Pierce. Pierce came in the room, smelled me himself, and then called one of his staff to get a ‘go-bag’. That’s the last thing I remember in New York. I woke up later in a house I didn’t recognize, but I soon learned was in West Palm Beach.

“The house was full of omegas, most of them underage. There were eleven-year-olds there, for fucks’ sake, who had just presented.” MJ was crying by this point, but Steve knew it wasn’t for her. He had a feeling she was seeing each of their faces in a carousel of pain in her mind. “And then a bunch of us who were 3-7 months pregnant. We were hired out by Rory Carrol for sex with up to as many as 8 alphas a day. I will clarify that while they were all alphas, they were also all men. So take that for what it’s worth. The only women I saw for five months were the omegas I was imprisoned with.”

“It was hell. I was taken to a private island a few times and ordered to pleasure several other men I recognized.” She rattled off seven more names: two Oscar winning actors, three politicians, one CEO, and member of a European royal family. “When I was 5 months along, I was told to sign a piece of paper that would give my child directly to Pierce as their sire and that I would relinquish all rights and control to that child. There was no way in any hell I could imagine that I was doing that, so I started plotting my escape even more intensely than I already had.”

She paused, put her hands on her swollen abdomen, and then continued. “Bean and I decided to make a run for it during a food delivery early on a Monday morning. I realized that Carrol assumed we were all too sexually sated or something to do anything before 9am. Nearly everyone in the compound was asleep except a skeleton crew of guards - only a handful of whom are loyal to him and the rest of them are just afraid. I know two guards saw me, and I’ll never be able to thank them enough for not saying anything as I climbed into the back of a bakery van. I knew they could send me right back to Carrol, or just kill me outright, but I had to take the risk.”

MJ paused again, took another sip of water, and then continued. Steve was so proud of her. He’d known she was strong - honestly, most omegas he knew were strong as hell because you had to be to survive their lives - but he’d been unprepared for the way she was handling this.

“Thankfully, they stopped at a traffic light at one point, and I saw that there was a Planned Parenthood sign in the strip mall. I ran out of the van and into the clinic and told them I was a trafficked omega from New York City and I needed help. And then they called you guys, or whoever, and now I’m here.”

“Miss Jones,” one of the detectives said, “that was masterful. Thank you so much.”

And with that, she collapsed back into the chair and Steve saw the tears flow freely from her eyes. Without even thinking, he simply moved to her and sat next to her on the floor. He grabbed her hand to let her know he was there, and she squeezed in Morse Code that she loved him. It was the first thing Steve had taught her when she got hired - the best way to communicate with each other when Pierce was around - and it never failed to ground him.

“Are you guys going federal on this?” Sharon asked.

Rodriguez nodded. “It’s in the federal code that you can’t take an omega across state lines without authorization from the Omega Management Agency, so that’s an easy one. She was found in Florida and there are no records of her being moved to Florida. With her testimony, we should be able to get a warrant within a few hours, and then we can raid the compound. The more states the girls come from, the more we can get to sign on.”

“I don’t follow,” Tony said.

Rodriguez motioned to Sharon, who explained. “Legally, because all of you at Omera’s are unbonded, Pierce is borrowing you from the State of Massachusetts. He has abused the terms of that arrangement, and our guess is that there are at least a few other alphas who have done the same. The more states those girls come from, the more states have been aggrieved by Carrol, and Pierce, and whoever else, and they can all join the State case. The Massachusetts DA is an idiot -”

Sharon paused as though she was waiting for someone to contradict her, and no one did.

“- So I’m assuming you found a loophole to go straight to the Supreme Court?”

Rodriguez nodded. “One of the ADAs isn’t an idiot, and happens to be married to the DA in Connecticut, and Connecticut is joining the case as a peremptory measure to protect the omegas, etc. I just need the warrant, and MJ’s bravery gave us that.”

“Just name the bill that frees omegas after me,” MJ said weakly from her chair, her eyes still closed. “Small reward, I figure.”

“We sure will suggest it,” Rodriguez replied. “We’ll head now to get all the paperwork going. Ms. Carter, Mr. Barnes, I’m assuming your firm will represent Ms. Jones?”

“And any other omega involved in this case, yes,” Sharon said.

“Then we’ll be in touch,” the detective replied. Once they were all gone, Sharon turned to the three men.

“Why don’t you guys get out of here? MJ needs to rest and I have some work to do to gather medical evidence.”

“Are you sure?” Steve hesitated and four letters pulsed in his palm. He chuckled and the three alphas looked at him. “MJ just told me to get the fuck out, so Iet’s do that.”

* * *

Things moved shockingly fast from there. It seemed like a lot of states had been gathering evidence on Rory Carrol and his vast network of cretins - Pierce being one of the kingpins in that arrangement. Once MJ’s statement earned a warrant, the house of cards came tumbling quickly.

Carrol was arrested first, and then Granger. Granger, unfortunately, made bail and then cut a plea deal, but they couldn’t get everything they wanted. Carrol was on constant suicide watch because no one put it past him not to die by his own hand rather than stand trial. All told, there were 27 arrests linked to MJ’s bravery, and over 260 omegas freed from various brothels around the country. The public outrage at the blatant abuse of the law provided the soundtrack for the trials.

Steve snorted at the outrage, as did all his colleagues. One of the omega activists he followed on Twitter said that moderate alphas all over the country woke from a half-century slumber, and realized that their benevolence towards their omegas was neither the norm nor enough. He liked that analogy, especially because Tony and Bucky admitted it applied to them.

_“I just can’t quite believe you guys didn’t realize how bad it was,” Steve said one evening while they were cuddling in bed._

_“We didn’t have to,” Tony replied quietly. “We treated every omega we knew with dignity and respect and we figured most alphas did, too. Darcy seemed happy, and she was the only omega we knew really well, and…”_

_“It was easy to pretend everything was fine,” Bucky admitted. “And then we fell in love with you and pretending wasn’t an option any more.”_

_Steve kissed each of them in turn. “I get it. It’s just… I just can’t imagine that level of… I’ve never had the option not to know.”_

_“We know,” Tony said. “Which is why we’re so grateful you’re patient with us, and willing to help us learn.”_

The day Pierce was arrested was one of the best days of Steve’s life. Detective Rodriguez let him know that the squad was on their way, so Steve could make sure everything was filmed for MJ - who was living with Darcy and her husband until the baby came. Pierce sputtered and threatened and flooded the room with scents of dominance. Rodriguez had simply pointed to the scent diffusers the entire team had on their noses and continued to read Pierce his rights.

While he was awaiting trial, his assets were frozen, which included the club. The omegas were allowed to still live in their rooms, but none of them particularly wanted to. So, in typical Tony fashion, he handed the keys to the mountain cabin over to Val and told them to take care of themselves while everything settled. Sharon had worked some magic to get Tony assigned as their ward, and Pepper ‘hired’ them all as interns to learn some office management and coding skills.

Everything was perfect.

Except Steve couldn’t bond with Tony and Bucky until Pierce was confirmed guilty.

And it was _killing_ him to wait.

The waiting was made slightly easier by the fact that he was living with Bucky and Tony, and their routines kept him grounded. He’d always been pretty adept in the kitchen, but he spent hours pouring over recipe books to try his hand at new techniques. He’d been into doodling since he was a boy, but had never done anything with it, until Tony set up with a credit card and an unlimited spending account to discover his passions.

He tried woodworking (too many splinters), knitting (his hands felt too clunky), bird watching (not as relaxing as Sam claimed), and reading. Reading stuck, and he became a veritable vacuum of information - sucking up everything he could. He luxuriated in the time he had to make his own choices.

By the time the first day of the trial rolled around, he’d worked his way through Bucky and Tony’s entire home library and had become close friends with the local librarian, a delightful woman named Heather. While Tony favored political biographies and Bucky loved science fiction, Heather helped Steve find wider genres. He’d picked up his most recent round of reads the night before, and she had tucked a note into one of the books that she’d be thinking of him on trial day.

Six months since Pierce’s arrest and the small kindnesses of other humans never failed to take his breath away.

“Handsome,” Bucky called from the doorway of their bedroom, “you ready?”

“Yes,” Steve said resolutely. He continued to futz a bit with his tie; he’d never quite gotten a Windsor knot down.

“Let the knot expert help with that,” Bucky said with a lazy grin that sent fire up and down Steve’s spine. He crossed the room and turned Steve away from the mirror. Bucky fixed Steve’s tie and then grabbed it to pull the omega down to Bucky’s mouth. They shared a long, tender kiss, before Tony’s voice interrupted them.

“For crying out loud, we have to look like respectable people, Buckaroo. Keep it in your pants,” Tony said, exasperated but fond. “We literally just knotted him this morning.”

“I know, but look at him,” Bucky said with a whine, and Steve laughed.

“I’m fine, you guys, I know what you’re doing,” Steve replied.

“Flirting with our boyfriend?” Tony asked, batting his eyelashes in faux-innocence.

“Trying to distract me,” Steve corrected and reached out his hand to beckon Tony closer. The smaller man went willingly and soon the three were in a vertical cuddle. “It’s basically a sentencing at this point, right? That’s what Sharon’s been saying. That no matter what -”

“You’re trying to calm us,” Tony interrupted. “That’s not your job here. Put the scent away.”

Steve ducked his head sheepishly. Learning to not be in charge all the time, to not have to mind everyone around him, to let himself be taken care of… those lessons were still in progress.

“Look at me,” Tony whispered, and Steve obliged. Bucky hummed a bit at the rearrangement of bodies, but then simply let go of them each. Tony grabbed Steve’s face and brought it down to his, so that their foreheads were touching. “Sharon’s right. Pierce broke so many laws that the idea of a jury trial was laughable. Fourteen counts of racketeering, seventeen of money laundering, seven of trafficking, nine of omega abuse, and those are just the ones in U.S. jurisdiction. Once the Hague got involved, this became a slam dunk. All that’s left is the fighting over whose jail he rots in. That’s all true. But you’re still allowed to be nervous.”

“I’m terrified,” Steve admitted, “but mostly I just want it over with. I want him in past tense.”

“Mutual, Stevie,” Tony replied. “Mutual.”

* * *

_TexityText: Partners Chat_

_Bucky: Guilty on all counts, except for two of the racketeering ones because Fox thinks those are Canadian more than American._

_Sharon: FUCK YES_

_Carol: HALLELUJAH_

_Sharon: So he goes to Quebec next?_

_Bucky: No, Berlin called dibs a bit ago. He goes there next._

_Sharon: Is there a record for how many countries can hate one person?_

_Bucky: I knew he had his hand in a lot of pots, but even I didn’t know all of them until today. Carrol was only one trafficker he knew. He’s been supplying pregnant omegas to black market clubs for decades._

_Carol: How’s Steve?_

_Bucky: He and Tony are both crying. We’re about to drive to the cabin to tell the rest of them._

_Sharon: They can’t get the news there?_

_Bucky: Steve asked them to let him break the news. He was still worried it was going to be terrible and he wanted them all to find out as a family._

_Carol: What a sentimental sap._

_Carol: He’s perfect for you._

_Sharon: Re: the club. Ownership will pass to Steve because he’s Pierce’s next of kin, but will be put into a conservatorship until he names an alpha. Whose name is going on the bonding contract? I’ll get started on paperwork._

_Bucky: Both of ours._

_Sharon: James._

_Bucky: You’re smart, Carter. Figure out how to put both our names on there._

_Carol: Go celebrate, Buck. We’ll see you on Wednesday._

_Bucky: It’s Thursday, Carol. I’ll see you tomorrow._

_Carol: Fuck off you will. We have the prep meeting for Nawgassat at 1pm on Wednesday. You come in before noon and I’ll be grumpy._

_Bucky: Heaven forbid._

_Bucky: Thanks, C._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You may notice some similarities in this between the Evil Men (TM) in the fic and Evil Men in real life. The house in West Palm Beach is very similar to the one owned by Jeffery Epstein where underage girls gave "massages" to older men. For more information on this very, very real thing - I recommend the Netflix documentary "Filthy Rich". Here's a [Guardian write up](https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2020/may/27/jeffrey-epstein-netflix-documentary) for anyone who wants more info. 
> 
> In happier news - our boys need a bonding ceremony and I'm gonna give 'em one! See you on the 30th!


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And we're at the end of this one... for now? It's a fun world, and with the right prompt, I'll probably revisit it. 
> 
> Thanks, as always, to Jeh for the cheering, and to Ferret for the beta. Heather, I hope this lives up to your wildest dreams.

“How traditional are we going, here?”

Steve peered up at Bucky from beneath his lashes. “Well, some of the things we just did can’t really be referred to as ‘traditional,’ Buck.”

Bucky lazily swatted at Steve’s shoulder and continued. “The bonding ceremony. The wedding, I know we’re writing our own, but with the bonding, we at least gotta do some of the legal shit. How much other traditional stuff are we keeping in there?”

As soon as the trial was over, Tony and Bucky claimed guardianship over all the omegas who used to work at Omera’s. Steve was sure Tony had called in approximately eight million favors to make it happen, but there was also something to be said for the fact that MJ had declared on national television she’d never obey another alpha but Tony or Bucky. After an exceptionally emotional evening on Thursday, where they all began to process what Pierce’s sentence meant, Bucky and Pepper had worked together to find an VRBO in the Catskills where all the staff could live together and be alone. By Friday evening, they were settled in their new digs and Tony, Bucky, and Steve had reclaimed the lake cabin for their own.

They’d spent most of Saturday alternating between the couch, bed, and hot tub, while they laughed, and cried, and fucked, and started to process what the hell happened now that Pierce wasn’t in charge of their lives any longer. Steve was so excited he could barely breathe, but he simultaneously could not believe it was real. It was now approaching midnight, and they were all tucked into bed with the crickets outside providing a soundtrack to their plans.

“I’m most interested in it happening quickly,” Steve said from his position curled into Bucky’s right side with his arm draped across Bucky’s middle.

Tony laced his fingers through Steve’s from the other side of Bucky. “Traditionally, the bonding ceremony was exclusively for the couple, and the wedding was for their family. We did the ceremonies together, but I don’t want to do that this time.”

A weird feeling formed in Steve’s stomach. Why wouldn’t Tony want to claim him and covenant with him in public? Was there something unseemly about the alpha/omega bonding bite that Tony thought was -

“Hey.” Tony tugged gently on Steve’s fingers. “I don’t know where your brain just went, but bring it back. Buck and I were young, and far more focused on the party aspect of the day than the ceremonies. Now that we’ve been in this a few years, I want to honor the ceremony a bit more.”

“And then let Pepper and Val and Scott throw the world’s biggest party,” Bucky added. “Because we didn’t come with a pack, not really. So everything could be a bit more slapdash. You, my handsome fucking omega with a heart bigger than your dick, come with a whole goddamn pack, and we want them to be a part of the wedding.”

“But they’re not part of our bond,” Steve said slowly. “I get you now.”

“Good.” Bucky’s voice was warm. “Now that we’ve had today’s panic attack over how we’re ashamed of you somehow, can we move on?”

Steve surged up to nip at Bucky’s ear playfully, and Bucky responded by manhandling Steve until he was straddling Bucky’s torso. Bucky grabbed Steve’s face and brought it close to his. “I’m teasing, because if I don’t, I get mad at the asshats all over again, but this is one of the reasons I want to bond before the ink is dry on the contracts. We've got a lot of years of lies to untangle in your head, and I want this part settled.”

Steve melted slightly into Bucky’s hands and let himself be drawn in for a kiss. He pulled back and looked at both of the men beneath him. “I want it to be us, Sharon, Carol, Sam, and Pepper. That’s it. Sharon or Carol can be the officer of the court and then we have three witnesses. Traditional vows, and I want both of you to bite me at the same time.”

“We want you to bite us, too,” Tony said softly.

Steve blinked a few times, and tried to figure out why he was surprised. He should have known that when they said ‘mutually bonded triad,’ they meant it.

“Tony’s gotta go first,” Bucky said. “I checked with Sharon, and because I control the conservatorship, the law suggests you bite him to show I haven’t coerced you.”

“Whatever,” Steve said. “However we make this as iron clad as possible, as quickly as possible.”

“How do you feel about tomorrow?” Tony’s voice was firm, but Steve heard the slight quaver. They’d danced around this question, they’d made plans as though this idea was firm, but once Steve said that he was ready, plans would be put in motion that could not be stopped.

To him, there was only one response.

“I, Steven Grant Rogers, an omega of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, born of Sarah and sired by Joseph, do humbly request a bond with Anthony Edward Stark and James Buchanan Barnes, also of the Commonwealth. I enter this bond with respect to its permanency, and I vow to do all in my power to provide the stability to the bond I am required to by both nature and law.”

The words were not nearly as ancient as the magic they represented, but they’d been said by every omega who bonded with an alpha throughout all of their lifetimes.

“I, Anthony Edward Stark -”

“And I, James Buchanan Barnes -”

“- graciously receive the request for bonding, and affirm it. We chose you as our partner, and the stabilizing force in our bond.”

Bucky continued the oath, seamlessly picking up where Tony paused. “From this moment forward, we will count you as ours, and ourselves as yours, and look forward to the day where our bites can solidify this vow.”

They were all quiet for a moment, basking in the solemnity of what they had just done. Finally, Steve cleared his throat. “Tomorrow works for me.”

* * *

“Mr. Rogers?”

Steve looked up from his desk. “That’s still going to take some getting used to,” he muttered. “Serena, what’s up?”

“The reporter from CNN is here?”

“Fantastic, can you show her to Booth 17?”

Steve’s newest employee nodded, and quickly left his office. Steve took three deep breaths, and then grabbed his phone.

_TexityText: Senior Staff_

_Steve: Reporter’s here._

_Sam: Got it. Where do you want us?_

_Steve: Sam & Val, can you make sure she’s got whatever drinks or snacks she wants?_

_Val: She’s gonna want to see the contract. That’s the rumors - that you’re not actually on the lease._

_MJ: I’m thinking of getting a tattoo. “Yes an omega owns the club. Yes, all omegas work here. No, you cannot see an alpha manager, because there isn’t one.”_

_Sam: Long ass tattoo._

_MJ: Would still save me time._

_Sam: Maybe that new fella of yours can make it project in a hologram or something._

_MJ: I have no idea what you’re talking about._

_Val: Sam, you know she thinks we haven’t seen her make those cow eyes at that Parker boy. She’s being stealthy._

_Sam: I’m moving to Norway in a bit, so if the wedding is after that, let a brother know so I can get a flight in time._

_Steve: THERE IS A REPORTER IN THE BUILDING._

_Val: Sorry, Boss. We’re on it._

Steve chuckled. He’d officially owned the club for six weeks - Tony and Bucky had signed it over to him while the bond bites were still healing - and they’d been open for the past two. He’d expected media attention, but he hadn’t quite expected so much, so he’d borrowed a media liaison from Pepper, and she had set up today’s interview.

He glanced at the photo of his mother on his desk. “Ma, I’m so glad you were so wrong about so many things.”

“She wasn’t wrong about you being something special though,” Tony said from the doorway, interrupting his thoughts.

“Hey, you. I thought you were in Singapore.” Steve crossed the room and pulled Tony into a kiss. “When did you get back?”

“About fifteen minutes ago. Buck’s caught up with something, or he’d be here,” Tony replied.

“I told you guys I was fine,” Steve said. “I can handle -”

“I swear I’m not pulling alpha rank, but your very first solo interview about being the very first omega to legally own a business in the City of Boston in 67 years? At least let me hover.”

Steve rolled his eyes. “Karen’s been here for two straight days, prepping me for every question she thinks -”

“Mr. Rogers, will you allow clients to fuck your omegas for old time’s sake?”

Steve’s eyes flashed. “He wouldn’t dare ask that.”

Tony shrugged. “When we first got married, Bucky had someone ask him about the circumference of his knot compared to my hole. Famous people aren’t people, we’re objects of curiosity.”

Steve considered that for a moment, and then nodded. “You can hover.”

Tony preened, which caused Steve to laugh. He laced his fingers through Tony’s. “I love you.”

“Mutual, Stevarino,” Tony said. “Now, as we walk to Booth 17-”

“How did you-”

“Please, like you’d put him anywhere else,” Tony said dismissively. “Have you given more thought to the honeymoon?”

“I literally just started a new business, I can’t take a honeymoon,” Steve replied. They’d had this conversation at least six times already, and Tony simply wouldn’t let up.

“Ah, but you spent years training the best staff the world has ever known, so I ask again, where do you want to go?”

“That village Sarah came from,” Val called from her place behind the bar. “Take him to his great-granny’s cabin, Stark.”

Tony paused. “Val knows the dream destination and I do not? I am hurt, Steve. Injured beyond emotional repair. How could -”

“Drama queen,” Val interrupted. “He’s been talking about it since I met him. Pump the brakes, and take him to Northern Ireland.” She started preparing a gin and tonic, perhaps for the reporter, and then paused. Her face set into her ‘serious talk’ look, the one she used when she thought Steve needed a sister more than an employee. “Boss Man, we’ve been running this club with our eyes closed for years, and we used to have to do with ogling asshats and corsets so tight we couldn't breathe. Thor found us some great bouncers, Peggy’s right next door, and no one on this earth deserves a honeymoon more than you. If you step one foot in here for the first two weeks after your wedding? I’ll bite it off.”

“She will, too,” Tony said.

Steve knew when he was outnumbered and held up his hands in surrender. “I’ll think about it.”

Val cocked an eyebrow and stared at Tony. “Book the tickets or he loses a foot.”

Tony saluted, and the pair made their way to the waiting reporter. “Carol and Sharon said a similar thing to Buck after the trial, you know. That if he came in before the end of a certain time, they’d fire him.”

“He’s a partner.”

“Pepper changed all the locks on me after the bonding ceremony so I’d stay home with you two.”

Steve laughed. “God, these women we know.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Tony said with a twinkle in his eye. “Just never let any of them hear you say it, or they’ll know we’re grateful. The nagging exasperation is fun.”

“You’re weird.”

“I’m your weird.”

“Damn right,” Steve whispered, and kissed Tony on the forehead before he took a deep breath and fiddled with his suit coat. “Showtime.”

* * *

“Well,” Pepper groaned, “we certainly can’t serve the salmon and cream cheese thing.”

“We’re getting married in a semi-outdoor venue in May and you didn’t plan for the sun?” Tony nearly screeched. “Steve specifically -”

“Steve gives a rat’s ass about the food, he’s too nervous to eat anyway,” Pepper snapped. “You’re projecting your-”

“I’m not hearing this.”

“-nerves and insecurities onto the food, because I did account for the sun, you annoying jackass, I didn’t account for a thirty degree temperature jump!”

“Global warming sucks,” Bucky said from his seat. “Can I just go order from Venezia’s?”

“We are not having subpar Italian at our wedding,” Tony replied.

“Who the fuck is saying Venezia’s is subpar Italian?” Bucky asked incredulously, his jaw dropped. “They’re your favorite pizza.”

“They’re your favorite pizza, I don’t like them.”

“Are you joking? I hate the crust.”

“Well,” Tony replied quickly, “then today has been quite educational.”

“Gentlemen.” The firmness in Pepper’s voice brought them both up short.

The trio were in the Alpha Suite at the wedding venue. Outside, Bucky could hear Sam and Riley ushering people to their seats and Thor’s booming voice calling greetings to everyone he knew. MJ had surprised them all by knowing how to play the violin, and the strains of melodies drifted through the air as well. Bucky knew that Carol and Sharon were circulating to ensure that their most important clients were happy - because this wedding was as much political as it was personal - and that they’d be minding SI’s customers as well.

The staff from Sarah’s Bistro & Lounge was circulating and making sure that all the guest omegas were comfortable. Steve had asked if they could fly in everyone who had survived Pierce’s reign of terror for the party, and Bucky had started booking private planes so fast that he knew his omega’s head had spun.

All told, five hundred people would gather over the next few hours to watch two alphas make vows with an omega, and then maintain no legal claim over that omega. It was the first wedding of it’s kind in the Commonwealth, and if Tony’s campaign for Mayor was successful, he’d spend the next several years making sure it wasn’t the last.

The day was Steve, Tony, and Bucky’s declaration that a new world was possible.

Bucky wasn’t going to let it get fucking ruined by melted cream cheese.

“I will not serve salmon and cream cheese starters in 90 degree weather,” Pepper continued, and brandished her phone. “But Peggy’s chef just barrelled into the catering tent with a few jars of cranberry chutney and I’ve been told a new appetizer is going to be circulated within moments. Or do you want to get married and we hold off on the snacks?”

“Married.” The word tumbled out of Bucky’s mouth before he could stop it. “Emily’s ready to start?”

One of Bucky’s best friends from law school had agreed to fly up from Tennessee to officiate the ceremony. Not only was she a badass in her own right, but Emily ran a successful YouTube channel which advocated for an omega-rights-foward interpretation of the law. Having Emily D. Baker officiating the wedding was another statement on a day filled with them.

“She is,” Pepper affirmed. “She texted a few minutes ago.”

“Then let’s get our omega,” Tony said.

* * *

“In a move that should surprise no one,” Emily drolled, “the gentlemen have elected to write their own vows.”

The crowd laughed, which reminded Tony that the crowd was even there. “I’ll go first.”

“I’m shocked. Honey, are you shocked?” Bucky addressed Steve, and Tony rolled his eyes.

“I thought a lot about what these should say,” Tony started. “Do I just make vows to Steve because I already made them to Bucky? Or is that too simple? I’ve been wrestling with how to put into words what this is, what we’ve created, and then I had a talk with MJ, who clarified it for me.

“She said that she’s known Steve for years, and that none of them were surprised that he fell in love with two people, or that it would take two people to teach him that he was worthy of being loved. That when he finally made his own official pack, she knew he’d also drag everyone at the club into that pack, and so having multiple alphas was probably a good thing because they’re all a handful.”

The burst of laughter and the “you know it”s from the staff section of the chapel gave Tony a chance to take a breath before he continued.

“And that’s when it settled for me that what we’re creating here is an entirely new life, and entirely new pack,” Tony said. He grabbed both Steve and Bucky’s hands. “I never dreamed I’d be so lucky to find someone like Bucky, and then our life was great. We had friends, and good jobs, and a good life. Honest, nothing was missing. Which is why this massive addition of another part of our souls showing up is so insane and so… so perfect. We did the bonding thing, the three of us are set, but what we’re doing today is declaring ourselves as a pack and I can’t just make vows to Steve and Bucky, because they’re not the only ones at stake here.”

Tony dropped their hands and headed for where Val, and MJ, and Scott, and Jan, and Hope, and Nebula, and Serena, and the other new kids whose names he could not remember, were sitting. He stood in front of them and loudly declared words he never dreamed he’d say: the Adopted Clan Vows of the Old Ways. “On this day, I invite you to be mine and for me to become yours. For as long as we choose each other, you shall be under my care. Should you accept, I offer you safety and family, and I vow to bring harm to your enemies and welcome to your friends. What say you?”

The group was silent for a moment before Val broke it, her voice thick with emotion. “Fucking hell, Stark, I was not prepared! I say yay.”

“I say yay,” Sam replied, and the rest of the group followed suit. Before Tony could turn and grin at Bucky, he felt his husband’s hand at the small of his back.

“So I was going to do the same thing,” Bucky said, “and we didn’t even talk about it. So, ditto?”

The group laughed, and MJ stood. She gestured to the group immediately around her and then gave a definitive nod. “So say we all.”

“SO SAY WE ALL,” the newly covanented pack echoed, and Tony heard Steve’s sobs from behind him.

He quickly headed back to Steve, and nodded at Emily. “I have ones for just him, too.” She gestured for him to continue, and Tony saw Bucky climb back up to join them from the corner of his eye. “Even if my hindbrain didn’t choose you, I’d choose you. All the things I said the night of the ceremony are true, and six months on, they’re more true than ever.”

“Same,” Steve said wetly. Tony reached up to thumb away Steve’s tears, and was shocked when Steve returned the gesture. Tony hadn’t even realized he’d been crying. “Even if my instincts didn’t trust you, I would. I love you for all the reasons I’ve told you over and over, and I’m still pinching myself that this is my life. All the vows I made that night are true.”

“Yokels,” Bucky said, putting on the thickest inflection of his childhood accent that he could. “Do I get a piece of this?”

They opened their stance to allow him to join them, and Bucky started to speak softly. Tony wasn’t even sure the microphones positioned around the altar would pick up the sound, and decided he didn’t care.

“Stevie, when Tony said that you’re the piece of our souls we didn’t know was missing, he’s right. You didn’t complete us, just like we didn’t complete you. You took us to a whole other form of being that’s so rich I can’t imagine us ever fitting into that old life again. I mean everything I said that night, too, but I want to say one thing over again.” Bucky raised his voice at that point, and said loudly, “So help me God, Steven Grant Rogers, you’re going to smell grass as often as possible for the rest of your natural days. If ghosts can smell joy scents, you’ll smell it in your unnatural ones as well. I’ll never be able to truly love you the way you deserve, but I’m gonna die trying.”

They were all crying, and Tony heard sniffles from other directions as well. Emily called for the rings, and they each placed them on the appropriate fingers. Tony and Bucky had decided to save their original wedding rings for any future pups - either ones they had, or ones they adopted. They wanted fresh rings to symbolize this fresh life. When that was done, Emily cleared her throat.

“By the power vested in me by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, the State of Tennessee, and the trust you all placed in me, I pronounce you as a permanently bonded and married triad. What your choice has sealed together, let no State put asunder. Congratulations, you may kiss your mates.”

* * *

“And they all lived happily ever after,” Sam said as he plopped down beside Steve.

“I still can’t believe it’s real,” Steve said. “It’s all happened so fast, I can’t quite believe I’m not in a dream.”

“Believe it, man,” Sam said, and slapped Steve on the back. “Love can change things really quick, if we give it room to use its power.”

Before Steve could respond, Tony and Bucky approached the table with matching expressions of glee.

“Oh no,” Steve said, “those expressions mean you just spent a ton of money on something, and I’m going to be uncomfortable.”

“We only spent about two grand on this,” Bucky said, “and you will be thrilled.” He handed Steve a tablet. “Press play.”

The screen shifted to show Alexander Pierce in a prison cell. “What’s this?”

“Footage from thirty minutes ago,” Tony said. “Keep watching.”

And Steve did, as someone in a suit entered Pierce’s cell and identified himself as Senior Agent Phil Coulson of the CIA.

_“Mr. Pierce, I’m here to fill you in on some things you’ve missed,” the agent said drolly, and Steve decided he liked him very much. “You may or may not be aware that all your assets were seized upon your conviction, and parceled out appropriately based on Judge Fox’s recommendations. Your holdings in the City of Boston were gifted to Steven Grant Rogers.”_

_“My stepson is an omega,”_ Pierce spat.

_“Correct, Mr. Pierce,”_ the agent said calmly. _“If you are inferring that he cannot own property, however, you are incorrect, because he can if he is bonded to an alpha who relinquishes control over Steve’s life. And in excellent news for Steve, he is bonded to not one, but two, such alphas.”_

_“Stark and Barnes are too smart to fall for his act,”_ Pierce snarled. _“They’ll see he’s nothing more than a used up hole soon enough and they’ll thank me for -”_

_“I believe I’ll stop you right there, Mr. Pierce,”_ Agent Coulson said. _“I’m simply here to show you some photos.”_

Coulson handed Pierce a pile of images that Steve squinted to see. He didn’t have to wait long, however, before Pierce told him exactly what was on them.

_“HIS NAME CANNOT BE ON THAT DEED. He is an OMEGA and they are not CAPABLE of independent thought, much less owning a business,” Pierce sputtered._

_“And yet,”_ Coulson said evenly, _“he does. You will remain in prison for the rest of your natural life, while your stepson thrives in his. I am here on behalf of Mr. Stark and Mr. Barnes, who are personal friends of mine, to let you know that every single one of your properties has been renamed in honor of an omega you abused. I will spend the rest of my career ensuring you are forgotten by history, Mr. Pierce, and that your legacy is not even worthy of a footnote. If revenge is a dish best served cold, consider this your notice that your life is frozen.”_

The video ended at that point, and Steve looked at his husbands. Their grins were wide, and warm, and the final piece of his soul settled into the moment. There was no other shoe to drop, no other thing coming to destroy the dream. He turned to Sam.

“And what happens after they all live happily ever after?”

“I dunno, man,” Sam said, “but I say we find out.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you liked the story, I'd love to know! Kudos and comments are life giving. If you're not sure what to say in the comment, know that I take keyboard smashes and emojis as full love. So, if you liked it more than just a kudos, dropping a heart emoji is great and I thank you in advance.
> 
> Find me on [Twitter](http://www.twitter.com/betheflame1) or [Tumblr](http://betheflame.tumblr.com) for more on these yahoos. You can also submit prompts and cajole me into writing faster - it usually works. If you're on Discord, I'm definitely there, too, and probably hanging in the [Put on the Suit Stony Server ](https://discord.gg/z5WSqbS) or the [STB Enthusiasts Stuckony](https://discord.gg/ktXHUb4) one.  
>   
> Oh! And FestiveFerret and I have a [fandom podcast](http://www.podonthesuit.com) if you're so inclined.  
>   
> 


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